39

Leo sat across from Lusamine, Lillie and Gladion sitting next to her with their eyes glued to the TV screen in the restaurant – ironically replaying Leo's latest battle. He didn't pay it much mind, chatting with Lusamine as he was, despite the revelations weighing on him. Cynthia's Spiritomb being named Magearna could be a coincidence, but he highly doubted it. It just wasn't common enough of a name. The true question was if her Spiritomb truly was a Magearna, or if it was some sort of cruel mockery of the mythical pokémon.

A pokemon he unfortunately knew very little about. Unlike, say, Mewtwo. Or the Tapus, or the Kanto and Johto legends, who he had researched when he could actually find legends and mythos about the 'mon.

"We do have a few business-related things to talk about today," Lusamine said, pulling a briefcase out from underneath the desk and setting it on the table, sliding Lillie and Gladion's food to the side to make room for it. Leo swallowed the last bit of hamburger – made from ground domestic Tauros meat – and nodded to her, motioning for her to continue as he wiped his greasy fingers.

There was plenty of amazing Alolan food available, but Leo had been craving a burger.

"First off, I wanted to congratulate you on your performance in the tournament so far. Despite not being in the top eight quite yet, you've done well. That being said, we need to consider your presentation when you do end up in the top eight," she said.

"When, not if," Leo half-joked, and Lusamine smiled, nodding.

"Yes. What this means is that we need to develop and think of an image for your 'trainer' persona, beyond the bland white Aether outfit you wear now. Initially I didn't think much of it, until the chief officer of branding pointed it out to me; Aether has no real image in the competitive trainer's field. We are the medicine makers of the world and conservationists, and that's what we're known for. Not for sponsoring powerful trainers; but for sponsoring trainers who perform rescue work. Victoria is actually the only truly competitive trainer we sponsor, but image for her was never an issue. She's an Oak. That is image enough. Whereas you aren't technically an Oak, and thus do not officially bear that image," Lusamine trailed off, looking Leo up and down pointedly.

"Don't I already have an image what with Santiago's evolution being on camera, and the dancing dragons thing?" Leo asked, furrowing his brows.

"Yes and no. That is the start of it; what we need to focus on is the look," she started.

"The look," Leo deadpanned. He didn't like where this was going. The white Aether suit he wore now already was far beyond his style, not that he knew anything about fashion to begin with. "Isn't that what I'm wearing now?"

"No. That is about as bland of an outfit as I could find, but it beats the typical rags you wear. In the upper tiers of training, this is very important in helping to establish your image to your growing fanbase. Think of it this way; the current Champions all have their styles. Lance, the dragon master, with his hairdo, cape, and clothes that are perfectly suitable for training dragons while still looking stylish enough. That boy from Hoenn, Steven, who just overthrew his predecessor, with his clean suit and tie. Alder from Unova, in his traditional ancient-Unovan garb. This even goes down to the Elite Four and Gym Leaders. Each has a distinct style that screams 'this is who I am.' Just as much as your team, it is what helps people discern what persona you have," Lusamine explained. Leo frowned and scratched his chin.

That did make sense. Branding was important for the public side of being a trainer…a side he'd largely neglected. For the most part he was just a trainer, running around doing whatever he wanted. If he wanted to continue to do that in other regions beyond just Kanto, Johto, and Alola, he needed a reputation that would let him travel and just do whatever he wanted without anyone minding. Working for Aether helped in that regard, and building up an image as a trainer would help as well.

When did I start thinking about going to other regions so naturally? He mused, taking a sip of his drink. He wasn't even done in Alola yet, yet he was already considering going elsewhere.

Still…

"That sounds like a lot of work," Leo said.

"It is. But that is just something for you to think about; I'll have someone come talk to you further later. As I said, the plain white Aether Employee uniform isn't quite outstanding enough," Lusamine said. Leo didn't object, sighing and rubbing a hand over his face.

"Right, right. Anything else?" he asked, and in response, Lusamine opened her briefcase, pulling out a manila folder and setting it in front of Leo.

"We decrypted a few things in Faba's database that might be of interest. Primarily, his research on Type: Null was blasted out to multiple regions across the globe just prior to his arrest. So far we've traced it to Kanto, Sinnoh, and Galar," Lusamine said bluntly, and Leo stilled. Though it wasn't certain, he was almost positive he knew who that research data was sent to.

Team Rocket, Team Galactic, and…the bad guy of Galar was that chairman dude, right? The one who wanted to wake up an ancient eldritch entity to use as a power source for the region like some sort of Doom video game ripoff? It was sad to think Leo didn't think he was the worst person on the list. Was he above Giovanni? …maybe. But definitely below Cyrus, who literally wanted to just destroy and remake the entire universe. And, if he remembered right, the man thought Giratina's distortion realm was beautiful and perfect or something.

That was…not good. Especially since Faba's research notes on Type: Null indicated he was trying to replicate Arceus' mythical ability to be any pokemon type; and…Arceus and Sinnoh…

Leo cursed mentally, consciously aware of the two kids next to him. Riveted to the TV as they were, he still didn't want to take the chance they'd overhear him. He flipped through the folder Lusamine had given him, skimming the technical information about Type: Null as it wasn't overtly relevant at the moment, and eventually shook his head.

"We'll need to have a discussion about that later," Leo said, and Lusamine paused. Then nodded. Might need to get Cynthia involved too. This gives me a bad feeling. "Anything else you learned from it?"

"Faba pushed my husband, Mohn, into an Ultra Wormhole after he figured out what Faba was doing for the Type: Null project," Lusamine said with a sad smile. Leo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He, Victoria, and Professor Oak had considered this possibility, but to have it confirmed was another matter entirely. Before he could even offer his condolences, Lusamine continued however. "And he might still be alive,"

"Huh?" Leo said, the word just slipping out. "Wait, how?"

"Faba must have done something to hide all this information from me while I was searching for Mohn, but there have been reports of other people who have survived passing through an Ultra Wormhole – only to come out the other side with no memories," Lusamine said, her smile slowly widening. "I'm almost afraid to hope, but there's a chance that Mohn is out there."

"That's great!" Leo said, beaming at her. "Do you have an idea of where to start looking?"

"I don't, not really. But Mohn used to joke with me back when we were dating that if he hadn't thought to become a scientist, he'd have been an Alolan pokebean farmer. I'll probably start there," Lusamine said with a light laugh. Something about that clicked in Leo's head, a small memory that was half-forgotten, and he smiled. Something about a pokebean farmer in the games, and a fan theory he vaguely recalled about him. But it could also be his imagination, so he just smiled and nodded along.

I truly hope that works out for you. He thought, poking Gladion in retaliation after the boy accidentally elbowed him. They chatted a bit more about that, mostly Lusamine reminiscing about her lost husband and getting her thoughts back in order, before the next topic popped up. Or, more specifically, Leo decided to bring up the original topic that had occupied his thoughts once there was a lull in conversation.

"So you know that girl that I've been hanging out with recently? Cynthia?" Leo asked.

"Yes, Victoria told me about her," Lusamine said, smiling knowingly. "She's quite pretty," Leo ignored that and forged ahead.

"I've been helping her with her Spiritomb, and about two hours ago she told me that her ghost had a name before she caught it; before it was officially a Spiritomb. Magearna," he said conversationally, and at this Lusamine's expression stiffened. "She doesn't know what the name means, but her Spiritomb was found in Sinnoh and she mentioned something about a civil war? I thought you might want to know,"

"I do. Thank you," she said, nodding. She lapsed into silence as Leo sucked the rest of his drink up, sighing and stretching in his seat. Now that the day was over, he was feeling pretty exhausted. Despite this just being a battling tournament, the amount of drama stuff he'd had to deal with during it was alarming. More annoying. Though Faba blasting out the Type: Null information did bug him. But there was only so much he could do and only so many warnings he could give; Giovanni had proved that to him. Despite him telling Professor Oak what he was and what he did, nothing had happened. The man covered his tracks well.

Let's just hope the other "Bad Guys" aren't as competent.

Leo fought back a yawn as he stood in the trainer's podium, toying with Xena's pokeball and looking out over the battlefield. It'd been a long night yesterday. Not only had he only gotten three hours of sleep, but he spent the better part of the night talking with Cynthia, who rambled on about the history of Sinnoh for hours, theorizing potential origins for her Spiritomb. Then he'd been trying to get Stein under control, the Type: Null having been particularly ornery while Leo tried to feed him; and he'd had a short chat in a more secured environment with Lusamine about the Type: Null data that had been leaked, which culminated in Lusamine declaring that she needed to do some digging on the "Teams" and promising another talk if and when something came of it.

That didn't satisfy Leo, but he really hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise. Lusamine was…well, Lusamine. The Teams seemed to be well-hidden in this world, and Team Rocket had taught him that there might be other circumstances involved around them. But those were thoughts for later.

Right now he had a battle to win. And, since the opponent – a middle-aged man named Alexander – had a team of ground, psychic, and rock types, mostly focusing on "ancient" pokemon, Leo figured his back-up lead would be perfect.

"BEGIN!" the announcer boomed, and Leo sent out Link. Across from him a Carbink appeared, the little rock fairy spinning and immediately trying to set up a stealth rock without any prompting. Apparently that was a very common strategy. Leo supposed there was no harm in having a lot of pokemon learn that move, if there was no hard-limit of four moves like it the games.

Link, on the other hand, let Carbink do its thing and threw up a sunny day, the ball of bright light floating into the sky, then darted forwards with a leaf blade bared. Carbink took the first attack head-on, hardly even flinching as Link's attack skittered off its stone body, and retaliated with a point-blank ancient power. Orbs of silvery light appeared in the air around Carbink, and Link moved. He spun away from the first thrown ancient power, only to be caught by two more, the orbs blowing him backwards and giving Carbink some space.

Immediately Link threw out a few magical leaves that embedded themselves in Carbink's stone body, the rock type making a jingling sound as it tried to put up a light screen.

"Leech bomb," Leo ordered, Link immediately obeying. He reached into his leafy kilt and pulled out a handful of different sized seeds, tossing the larger, explosive ones at Carbink first. Another ancient power rose into the air in response, the silvery orbs meeting the seed bombs halfway in an explosion of silver and green. They didn't, however, stop the much smaller leech seeds from hitting their target. Three of the little things landed on Carbink's body, immediately sprouting vines that wrapped around it and began sucking the life out.

"Power gem!" Alexander called, large, purple, ethereal stones appearing around Carbink and rocketing towards Link. He nimbly flipped out of the way, sprinting to the side and summoning a substitute shield. Sunny day continued to beat down on the battlefield, and Link decided to make use of it. A solar beam blasted out from his leaf blade like a laser, blowing straight through a power gem and the light screen Carbink still had active, the weakened but still powerful beam knocking it sideways.

Link capitalized on the opportunity, sprinting forward and laying into the recovering rock type. For the most part it, surprisingly, seemed to ignore the blows, relying on its impressive defenses as it floated back up into the air and smashed its body into Link's substitute shield. He took a step forward and twisted, sliding around behind the Carbink and unleashing a point-blank solarbeam at its back.

Carbink wobbled in the air as Link planted a few seed bombs on the rock type's back and disengaged, detonating the seeds. A tinkling sound rang out as Carbink hit the ground, giving one last parting shot in the form of a small rock that shot out of the ground and bounced off Link's forehead before falling still. Alexander recalled Carbink, his expression cool and calm as ever, as Link darted forward and scooped up the leech seeds it had left behind. He immediately popped one of the three into his mouth, visibly perking up as his next opponent materialized on the field; a Sigilyph.

Leo raised an eyebrow at the strange avianoid, drumming his fingers against Link's pokeball. This was exactly the pokemon he wanted to draw out, but since Link still had two seeds left from the leech seed, he figured he'd let him stay out and wear down Sigilyph a little.

"Dazzle it," Leo ordered, at the same time Sigilyph whipped up a tailwind and flapped its wing-like appendages rapidly. A red glow emanated from its wings while Link glowed blindingly white, a flash of pink energy filling the stadium for a split second. Sigilyph droned oddly, but the red glow continued as it whipped its wings forward, embers flying forward as the air distorted from the heat wave. Link hunkered down beneath his substitute shield as the attack struck, the shield cracking and falling to pieces from the sheer heat.

Sigilyph struck once more in that moment, firing a psybeam from its center eye-like design that struck Link dead-on. The little grass type tumbled backwards, stabbing his leaf blade into the ground to arrest his momentum, and flung out a series of magical leaves. Sigilyph didn't bother trying to dodge, taking the hits and flicking out an air slash that Link scrambled to avoid. Leo frowned as Link tossed out a series of seed bombs, Sigilyph ascending in the air to dodge, then caught the avian with a glancing blow from a last-second solarbeam – right in time for the sunny day to fade.

Another psybeam caught Link, and he popped another leech seed in his mouth, absorbing the energy within.

"Cosmic gravity," Alexander ordered, and Sigilyph glowed with an eerie blue light. Link grunted and fell to one knee as the gravity around him intensified, glowing bright as he shot off another dazzling gleam, the attack only rocking Sigilyph back a bit.

"Link, return. Santiago, you're up," Leo said, recalling his grass type and letting Santiago out onto the field.

"Whirlwind," Alexander ordered calmly the moment Santiago appeared.

"Shadow ball!" Leo barked, gripping the railing of the trainer's box. He wasn't exactly sure how whirlwind worked in the real world, but in the games it forced a switch into a random pokemon. Which could be both bad or potentially really good, if he got someone like Diana.

The winds picked up harshly, whipping around Santiago as he spat out a shadow ball, the attack striking Sigilyph dead-on as it raced forward through the winds, slapping one wing into Santiago's chest and the two glowing with psychic power. Santiago grunted as he was bodily tossed backwards, spinning like a corkscrew, the winds catching him and slamming him into the psychic barrier directly in front of Leo. He groaned and fell to the ground, pushing himself up even as Sigilyph followed up on the attack with a series of psybeams and air slashes.

Santiago growled and spat out a water pulse, Sigilyph erecting a light screen to deflect the attack, and darted out of the way of a follow-up shadow ball.

Alexander remained calm and cool throughout the entire exchange, his expression not changing as the man, dressed in what looked to Leo like safari-expedition type clothes, made occasional orders and palmed Sigilyph's pokeball.

It wasn't until Santiago scored another hit with a shadow ball that Alexander recalled Sigilyph, swiftly replacing it with a Cradily before Santiago could attempt to recover with slack off. Leo raised an eyebrow at the fossil pokemon, mentally going over what he knew about it. He knew that it should be very rare, as it was literally a revived fossil, and that it was massively defensive and should be good for stalling, but that was about it.

"Keep it away from you," Leo said, frowning. Santiago grunted and spat out a few water pulses, Cradily using its tentacles to protect its face from the worst of the attacks. With how slow the plant-like 'mon was, it didn't bother trying to dodge. Instead it lashed the tentacles that weren't protecting itself in the air, throwing a series of seeds and a ray of purple light at Santiago. He stopped the seeds with a blast of psychic energy, knocking them back and away from him, though the ray of light continued on to strike Santiago…to no visible effect.

He didn't stumble, nor did he flinch when it hit him; for all the world, it seemed like the confuse ray didn't do anything to Santiago.

In return Santiago grabbed Cradily in a psychic hold and, despite the ancient fossil digging into the ground with its vine-like legs, tossed it to the other side of the arena, where he bombarded it with a series of shadow balls. Cradily groaned and picked itself up, vines glowing green as it refocused its attention on Santiago. Before Leo could blink a ball of green light shot from Cradily to Santiago, knocking the Slowking off his feet with the force, the fossil surging forward as green motes of light pulled themselves out of Santiago's body and gently floated back to Cradily.

Every time it absorbed some of the floating lights, its wounds seemed to heal. Vines that had been battered and bruised perked up, and Cradily even seemed to pick up speed.

"Santi, yawn," Leo commanded as the Slowking stood, shaking his head and yawning fiercely. A white bubble popped out of his mouth, floating along with the green motes towards the ancient fossil.

"Slap it out of the air," Alexander said calmly, sounding completely unconcerned.

"Close the distance," Leo said, and Santiago surged forward as Cradily shook itself, vines preparing to slap the yawn attack away. For a moment, Cradily appeared torn on what to do. On one hand, yawn was likely to take it out of the fight if it couldn't take Santiago out quick enough. On the other hand, there was an angry Slowking running towards it like a freight train. Tossing aside its indecision, Cradily once more glowed green, this time spitting out an energy ball that collided with the yawn, broke through it, and met Santiago as he lowered his head in a zen headbutt. Santiago twisted his head the moment the attack touched his crown, the ball of green light sliding off the coral and flying off towards the psychic barriers.

Now there was nothing between him and Cradily. The fossil pokemon quickly flicked out a few seeds, the leech seeds clinging to Santiago's hide, but it was already too late. He slammed into Cradily with all the force he could muster, crown lowered so the spikey coral could dig into its tough, rubbery body, bodily tackling the beast. The two fell to the ground in a heap, Santiago repeatedly bashing his head into Cradily's midsection, vines whipping his body harshly and green motes once more beginning to float out of his body.

Santiago growled and spat a water pulse directly down Cradily's throat, headbutted it again, blasted it with a point-blank psychic, and generally just flat-out brawled with it as they rolled around on the ground. The roaring of the crowd almost deafened Leo as he watched the spectacle – it looked less like a pokemon battle, and more like a drunken brawl.

That was when Santiago yawned again, the white bubble striking Cradily point-blank, and stunning it long enough for Santiago to disentangle himself and throw the grass-type away with another psychic.

"Slack off!" Leo barked, seeing his starter struggling to remain standing. He huffed and closed his eyes, visibly relaxing as the gem in his crown flashed pink. Cradily picked itself up and fired another hasty energy ball, only for it to be diverted at the last second by a quick burst of psychic energy, Santiago's eyes flying open. He backed up a few steps, summoning a shadow ball but not firing it. This was a waiting game now, and he was now on the defensive until Cradily fell asleep.

It didn't take long. Try as it might, the fossil pokemon couldn't do enough damage to Santiago in time to knock him out before falling asleep – especially with Santiago countering energy balls with shadow balls, and healing himself with slack off to offset the damage from leech seed and giga drain. And, once Cradily fell asleep and Santiago forcibly ripped the leech seeds off of himself, Alexander called the match.

"I forfeit," he said, voice still as calm as ever as he recalled Cradily.

The crowd erupted as the announcer boomed out Leo's victory, he, himself, stunned but not necessarily surprised by Alexander's forfeit. It would be a losing battle for him. With Santiago and Link still up, they'd be able to do more than enough damage to Sigilyph, who had already taken damage, to make it an easy battle for whoever Leo chose for his third member.

For his part, Leo recalled Santiago, thanked him for his hard work through the pokeball, and leapt down into the battlefield to meet Alexander halfway.

"Excellent battle," he praised, shaking Leo's hand. "Pity I couldn't make it to the top eight, but that's life I suppose. It was admittedly a bad matchup for me – your Bellossom and Slowking counter too many of my team members. Not to mention some of the rest of those monsters you have on your team,"

"Ah, uh, thanks. Your team's pretty awesome too – where'd you even find a Cradily?" Leo asked.

"I'm a relatively successful archaeologist. Cradily was a fossil I found in an old dig site, and a colleague of mine revived her for me. She's not a big fan of battling, but battling with her draws interest from sponsors, which fund my digs and gives me access to new sites," Alexander admitted freely, shrugging. "Helps that I can at least hold my own in the expert tier of battling." Leo looked Alexander up and down, nodding as something clicked in his head. What he called safari clothes earlier could also look like what one would think of if they thought "archaeologist." Pale cargo shorts, a wide-brimmed hat hanging from a string around his neck, and so on.

Was that what Lusamine was talking about when she mentioned a "style?" Because looking at this man's clothes, he did fit into that certain kind of stereotype.

"That's actually pretty cool." Leo admitted, and Alexander smiled.

"It is my life's work. Anyway, congratulations on the win. I'll be rooting for you," he said, and backed off the field as the announcer approached, booming Leo's victory and entrance into the top eight of the elite tier of pokemon trainers.

"Remember folks, the top eight battles will resume in four days, alongside the Captain-Tier tournament and the top eights from the other battling tiers! Battling schedules will be posted after the celebration ceremony in three days, so keep an eye out for your favorite trainers!" The announcer said, voice echoing above the chattering of the crowd. And after another round of congratulations, Leo was released off the field to go do whatever he wanted. He had a full two days to relax until the official ceremony – which was essentially just showing off the top eight of each battling tier before reaching the semi-finals, as well as honoring Tapu Koko, whom the tournament this year was dedicated too – but he already had it filled up with stuff he needed to do.

Leo shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked, heading towards the healing station reserved for contestants to get Link and Santiago healed up.

He needed to talk to Cynthia about Team Galactic and have another talk with her about Spiritomb and Magearna, he needed to meet with whatever stylist Lusamine had roped in to do her bidding the day before the ceremony, he probably needed to talk to Professor Oak and Victoria about a few things, he needed to work with his team like usual and spend more time with Stein, the Type: Null having had less time to interact with others as of late…

"I'm sure I'm forgetting something," he muttered, handing off Link and Santiago's pokeballs to the on-duty nurse. Stein was a whole other issue entirely. He just wasn't bonding with the synthetic pokemon like he did with others – he didn't feel a connection with it. Yes, Type: Null was strong and followed commands to a T, but for whatever reason the two hadn't clicked yet. Maybe that was because Stein was still recovering from the training Faba put it under, and he just needed to be patient though.

With a sigh Leo sat down in one of the waiting room chairs, folding his hands in his lap and looking at the ceiling as he organized this thoughts and toyed with a few of the pokeballs on his belt. He still had that extra Rockruff to deal with too; he'd been giving the little dog pokemon plenty of attention, but…it wasn't the same as having a real trainer. Though he'd been keeping it at the Aether Paradise for the most part, letting it play with its siblings and Lusamine's kids. Maybe I should just suck it up and train him. Though I'm loathe to introduce another team member when Sunny and Xena are still kind of getting settled. He mused.

"Congratulations on making it to the top eight. Guess I can't put you through training hell now," Victoria said, breaking Leo out of his thoughts as she sat down next to him. He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Aren't only contestants allowed back here?" He asked, looking around the relatively empty waiting room. There was only one other person, a boy of maybe eleven who kept looking at Leo and an older gentleman in fine clothes reading a magazine on pokemon fashion.

"I am the guest of honor," Victoria said with a yawn. "Of course I can be back here. Whoever wins the Elite and Captain tiers of battle gets to battle me; though to be honest I don't expect to see you in the finals,"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Leo deadpanned. "I've been doing alright so far, except for that one loss."

"True, but you've got some real competitors this year. That Kukui kid's got a monster of a team; I'd put him in the Captain tier, personally, but the tournament organizers wouldn't let him register as one. My money's on him to win it. But the other competitors aren't anything to scoff at either, there's this girl Mina, who specializes in fairies; Ilima, a normal specialist like me…and a few others I'm forgetting. Pretty sure there's another grass specialist, rumor is she's in line to take over the Grass Trial once the old hag who currently runs it steps down." Victoria said, shrugging.

"I'm good, but not Captain good is what you're saying," Leo said, vaguely recalling the names Mina and Ilima from the games. He knew very little about them, but they were names he recognized. And of course he recalled Kukui being a good trainer – in the original Sun and Moon games, not only was he the regional professor but you also had to battle him for the champion's seat. Shirtless macho-man he may be, he had a powerful team.

"Exactly. Honestly I'm impressed you got this far," she said, and Leo smiled at her.

"Yet you kept threatening me to do better," he pointed out.

"I just wanted an excuse to beat you and your team into the ground, what can I say?" she said with a helpless shrug.

"Not like you need a reason to do that anyway," Leo said, and Victoria laughed.

"True, true! I can do that any time I want. That said, how you holding up? A lot's been going on in this tournament, what with the Spiritomb debacle and all that." She said, putting a hand on Leo's shoulder.

"Eh, I'm fine. There's a few things I think we need to talk about in a more private setting though." He said, rubbing his forehead. "Lusamine's also pushing me to find a…style? Which is interesting, I suppose,"

"Don't let her force you into doing anything you don't want to," Victoria advised. "She was pushy even before Faba, now I'm almost afraid she'll want to dress you up in a hula costume and make you dance for the audience," Leo paused and thought about that, shaking his head and chuckling as he imagined himself, dressed in a leafy kilt like a Bellossom's, dancing in front of a stadium of people with Link and Xena.

"Not saying I'd ever want to, but you can't deny it'd be fitting," he joked, and Victoria snorted.

"Fair point. What's the super secret thing you wanted to talk to me about? We're pretty secluded here," she said, watching the gentleman get up and approach the nurse, who handed him a few pokeballs and sent him on his way. The young kid had already left, sometime while Victoria and Leo were talking.

"I need to get my thoughts in order for it first. But it involves Faba blasting the Type: Null data all over the place," he said.

"Does it have anything to do with that terrorist organization you mentioned? Team Rocket, was it?" she asked.

"Something like that. It's a different organization in Sinnoh," Leo said, and Victoria nodded.

"Then it's something we need to discuss." She said, shoulders sagging a bit. Leo patted her shoulder apologetically, feeling a bit bad about always bringing bad news and unfortunate information to her. She shrugged the action off though, standing and ruffling his hair, much to his annoyance. "But for now, we celebrate. Lusamine is planning a dinner or something, and Professor Oak may be teleporting in for a bit. I think he might be planning to bring Gary and Daisy over for the finals, if you make it that far."

"That'd be pretty cool," Leo said, smiling. Victoria nodded, paused, and gave him a critical look.

"Be honest with me, brat, how are you liking competitive battling so far?" she asked.

"It's…different," Leo allowed, shaking his head. "It feels different than the gym challenge even, though I can't put my finger on why."

"That's because your experience in battling is far more real-world than what you'll see in tournaments like these," Victoria said simply. "This is a sport more than anything else. The battles and tournaments are designed for people to enjoy watching them, the strategies involved reflect that. It may not be very sportsmanlike to use a move like explosion – but it is exciting. As for the gym challenge, well, those are from the old days where gyms were meant to create trainers that could survive in the wilds for long periods of time. Back when the routes weren't patrolled and regulated – the gym leaders are competitive battlers, yes, but the gym tests themselves were designed to literally train you, as a trainer."

Leo nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. That made sense, actually. And he could absolutely see competitive tournaments like this as a sport especially after what Alexander said. There was a lot of money in pokemon battling, and sometimes the best way to attract sponsors was through appealing to the masses. In fact, that was probably the main way to do it, now that he thought about it.

"Though to be a good trainer, you have to understand both sides of battling," Leo mused, and Victoria grinned at him.

"Exactly. You don't become champion by just battling in tournaments and doing the gym challenge over and over again," she said, ruffling his hair. Something dinged in her pocket and she pulled out her pokedex, frowning at the screen. "I'll see you at dinner, kid." And with that, she up and left him in the waiting room.

Leo shook his head and sat back, waiting until the nurse called his name, indicating that his pokemon had finished healing. There was still some leftover fatigue from all the battling they'd been doing, but that would easily be fixed up over the course of the next four days. Yes, he had some plans to do light training with them, but that was about it. He wanted his team in top shape for the upcoming battles, if they were going to be as hard as Victoria promised they'd be.

Exiting the medical room and heading outside the stadium, Leo stretched and kept an eye out for Cynthia. She'd said she'd be waiting for him outside the stadium, and, true to her word, he spotted her leaning against a lamp post with her head buried in a thick book, her Roserade standing next to her inspecting a nearby bush covered in white flowers. As he watched the grass-type poked the bush, prompting a few Comfey to go flying out of the plant with cries of displeasure. Leo chuckled, thumbing the release to Link's pokeball, immediately bending down to scoop up the Bellossom and place him on his shoulder.

"Bell," Link said, sounding only slightly tired. Leo smiled and poked him in the stomach.

"Hush, you. Sigilyph would have picked you apart," he said, approaching Cynthia, who still hadn't noticed him yet.

"Bellossom," Link insisted.

"And then what? You would've swept the third member, tired and exhausted as you were?" Leo asked.

"Bell," Link nodded.

"Oh, I see. Well I'm sorry for doubting you," Leo laughed, shaking his head. Link snorted and nodded as if he proved his point. "Cynthia," he called, finally getting said girl's attention. She looked up from her book and smiled.

"Leo! Come take a look at this," she said, waving him over and thrusting the book towards him, finger held over one specific paragraph. Leo raised and eyebrow and looked at the page, reading the passage that meant very little to him, even if it was interesting. It was about a certain battle in the Sinnoh civil war she'd been talking about that ended when a mysterious pokemon unleased a rain of fire upon the combatants, effectively ending the battle.

"Ok," he said, eyes tracing over to the drawn picture next to the passage and shrugging. "Does that ring any bells with the memories you've seen from Spiritomb?" he asked.

"Well – no, I'm not really sure to be honest." Cynthia said, some of her excitement dying down. Leo chuckled in amusement as she pulled the book back, rereading the passage with a frown. At least she seemed to be having fun. "But there's some contention about the pokemon that caused this in the records I've seen, so I thought it might be Magearna," she defended.

"It might be. But you've got a first-hand witness of everything in that book sitting in a pokeball at your side. Ideally you'll be able to fact-check everything you find in there with the memories of your Spiritomb and thereby cross-reference and get a general idea of what your pokemon's history is," Leo said.

"I'm doing that, but the memories are fragmented at best." She said with a sigh. Leo shrugged, not sure what else to say about it. It would take time, that's all. Hopefully Lusamine would be able to help, if she felt like sharing with Cynthia. Not that Leo would blame her for not sharing what she knew about Magearna – it is a mythical pokemon with potentially incredible power, as well as a gift her husband left for their children. Things like that are meant to remain secret. So Leo wouldn't say anything, because it wasn't his secret to share.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat and go over what you found so far," he said, yawning. Cynthia nodded, closing the book with a snap and starting to chatter away at him about some of what she'd found. Leo listened, though he was a little distracted, his thoughts all swirling inside his head like a storm. "Oh, by the way, congrats on your win. How'd it go?" she suddenly said, pausing mid-sentence to say that.

"Thanks, it went pretty well. Won without losing a 'mon, though he forfeited in the end," Leo said with a smile, Link puffing his chest out proudly. "You were saying about – what was his name again?"

"General Atami," Cynthia said, nodding and once again restarting her explanation of the particular battle she was trying to get to – starting by building up the context Leo would need for understanding it. But that was true of most history – for example, everyone had heard of Emperor Julius Ceasar of the Roman Empire, but knowing he was an emperor wasn't the same as knowing his history of how he became said Emperor, and defeated the other two members of the Triumvirate to get there.

Thankfully Leo had actually read up on pieces of the history of the pokemon world so he wasn't completely at a loss as to what she was talking about, that being one of the few things that actually interested him back when Professor Oak had tried to get him to go to school. Even then, most of what he knew ended up being self-study. Unfortunately, however, most of his knowledge was on the former political climate of Indigo, and more recent events had drawn parallels. Which was another issue to think about, now that he thought about it.

His list just kept growing. He still hadn't even completed any of the island trials, which might be the only part of his "to-do" list he was actually looking forward to.

"What a mess," Leo said, shaking his head.

"It doesn't get better," Cynthia agreed, pausing her explanation of how one commander essentially burned down the entirety of Floaroma Town just to flush out a few revolutionaries. He nodded in agreement, smiling to himself at the timing of his thoughtless comment. Now just to figure out how to breach the topic of Team Galactic with her…better yet, how does he explain it? Just jumping in and saying they're bad guys isn't all that great of an idea – just look at how his ousting of Giovanni turned out.

Literally nothing changed, because Leo didn't understand how Team Rocket rose in the first place. Looking at Indigo now, it's becoming apparent to him that it will rise in response to Lance for some inane reason, but it hasn't been an overt occurrence just yet. So how was Team Galactic any different? What did he know about them, what didn't he know? They had multiple skyscraper-esque bases all across Sinnoh, as best he remembered, so going around spouting that they're going to try to destroy all of creation sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory.

Leo sighed.

Oh, the joys of having knowledge he has no way to act on.

"So not tonight then," Leo said to Victoria over the video phone. She nodded apologetically while Link hung from Leo's shoulder, peering at the screen and trying his hardest not to fall asleep. But he didn't want to be returned, so Leo didn't return him.

"No, we won't all be having a celebratory dinner tonight. We will soon though. Lusamine and I had to run back to the Aether Paradise for work reasons." She said.

"Got it, no problem. It's not that big a deal anyways," Leo said with a shrug. He was doing good in the tournament, true, and making it into the top eight was something to be proud of, but he also didn't feel the need to make a big deal out of it. Would he like to treat himself or be treated to a nice meal? Absolutely. But that could easily wait.

"It's a big deal to Lusamine. She wants to do something nice for you," she said.

"She doesn't have to do that," Leo argued, knowing that it was a moot point. "But I do appreciate it anyways. What's the big reason though – anything I should be worried about?" he asked. Technically he was employed by Aether, it wasn't unthinkable that they'd send him out into the field if it was a big enough issue. Not that he actually expected that to happen, but still.

"Nah, should be nothing. Pretty sure it's just one of the Type: Null acting up." She said with a shrug. "You relax, focus on the tournament, and spend some time with that pretty new friend of yours." Leo stared at her blankly.

"She's right next to me, Victoria," he deadpanned, glancing at said girl out of the corner of his eye, Cynthia herself smiling and shaking her head in amusement as she stood off to the side of the public video phone. Victoria had sent him an email on his pokedex asking him to call her on the Aether Paradise phone line, so here they were.

"I know. Bye!" she said all-too cheerily, and promptly ended the call. Leo sighed and shook his head, ending the call and stepping away from the phone booth. A few other people used the line of video phones, but for the most part the crowds still seemed to be hanging around the stadiums themselves, what with the intermediate and beginner tiers still having a lot of battles happening. Gently he reached over his shoulder and picked up Link, pulling the little Bellossom fully onto his shoulder once more.

"Well now I've got time to kill," he said mostly to himself, glancing at the time on his pokedex. It was only a quarter to five, so there was still plenty of time left in the day. Cynthia said nothing, just looking at him from the corner of her eye and bending over to pet her Roserade, the grass type leaning into her touch.

"That's not such a bad thing. It's better than having too little time," she said. Leo nodded, already trying to decided what he wanted to do for dinner as he feet carried him away from the phones and towards the festivities. Cynthia followed, seeming to not have much of a direction or plan either. Though from the way she kept looking at him from the corner of her eye, he figured there was something she wanted to ask or say, but just hadn't figured out how to say it yet.

So he waited, and waited for her to ask, letting his feet carrying him wherever they wanted to lead. Until finally she spoke up.

"So, I have a question for you, and I'm sorry in advance if it's a little too private," she said slowly, brows furrowed.

"Shoot," Leo said. If he didn't like the question he wouldn't answer, but there was no harm in hearing it out.

"When we were in the mindscape, I saw your…aura, your soul, for lack of a better term. I was just curious about it. Victoria told me about your time in the Silver Mountains, but it doesn't entirely explain what I saw and what I continue to see." She said, frowning. Well. That was a little personal, in Leo's opinion, mostly because he shouldn't be running around telling everyone he fell through an ultra wormhole – not that he fully understood her question in the first place. What did she even see?

"What did she tell you about it?" he asked, Link perking up a little on his shoulder, seeming to pay attention to the conversation.

"Just that you survived for six months in the wild, alone, without any pokemon, when you were ten," she said softly.

"Yeah, I did. And? I'm not really sure what you're asking here," Leo admitted, frowning.

"I guess I just want to know your story. For your aura to show some of the things it does, it has to be quite the story. Does it have to do with your Spiritomb?" she asked, genuinely curious. Leo relaxed a little and debated on how far to go into his story, before mentally shrugging and deciding it wasn't really a secret. So long as he left out anything to do with the ultra-wormholes and Lunala, that is.

He started slow, not going into details on how he ended up in the Silver Mountains in the first place, stating that he didn't remember and his memories before that time were patchy at best, just…telling the story. From meeting Queen and her herd, and how they saved him from the Sneasel pack, to Tyrus and Longinus, finding Archibald Oak's remains, and finally escaping the Silver Mountains themselves with a baby Santiago on his back practically the entire way.

He ended the story with meeting Victoria, hiding from a snowstorm in the ranger cabin an Absol led him to. Cynthia just listened for the most part, nodding along and adding the odd question whenever Leo's storytelling was unclear, but otherwise just listening for the most part.

"That's an amazing story. You learned to dance the Bellossom dance? I'd love to see that," she said at the end. Leo flushed a little and shrugged. He'd already been forced to dance and sing on television by his own pokemon, what would showing off a dance be compared to that? "No wonder his soul seems so mature, going through that…" she muttered that last part so lowly Leo almost missed it. Equal measures of relief and disappointment washed through him upon hearing it though – a part of him was relieved that she assumed his aura was mature because of his experiences, thus keeping his "age regression" secret a secret, while another part was disappointed that she didn't figure it out. He didn't want to be treated like a child, not that she'd ever treated him that way. Being a trainer helped, he supposed.

Though to be fair, "age regression" wasn't really a viable thing to think of in situations like this. It was unrealistic.

"Maybe someday," Leo said. "Now you tell me your story. Maybe how you met your starter, or who even is your starter? Since we're swapping stories it's only fair," he said and Cynthia smiled.

"Ah, well," she started.

"Bell! Bellossom!" Link suddenly shouted in Leo's ear. He jerked his head away, his wince of pain almost immediately turning into an annoyed scowl as Link pointed eagerly in a direction.

"What?!" he snapped, following Link's pointing and almost immediately freezing. No. There was no way it was that convenient.

"Well, talk about Giratina," Cynthia muttered, crossing her arms and chuckling. What they were looking at was a stage, more like an attraction than anything else, that had two people dressed in hula skirts made to look like Bellossom leaves, dancing across a stage with a half dozen Bellossom, a few Comfey floating about, and Oricorio danced alongside them. A soft song played over a set of speakers, guiding the dance while the two humans strummed on stringed instruments reminiscent of ukulele's, but uniquely different. All in all it was a pleasant sight.

Ironic, considering they had just been talking about this. They stood there watching for a bit, and Leo silently judged the performance. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't a true Bellossom dance – shoot, it wasn't a true Dance. He could feel it, in the way the Bellossom moved, how the dancers played the ukulele knockoffs, how the Oricorio danced and sang. Something about it was off, and when he said as much, Link nodded in agreement.

"What do you mean?" Cynthia asked.

"I – well, how do I explain this," Leo said, rubbing his chin and looking at the speakers. "It's nice, sure, but they're just dancing. And that's ok, it certainly doesn't have to be anything special or amazing, but…it's just entertaining," he judged, finding that to be the only suitable response. It wasn't a bad thing, per se, but it was as if the pokemon and people were just going through the motions and putting on a show, not really strutting their stuff. Though judging by Cynthia's expression, she still didn't understand.

"Are you going to show me?" she asked leadingly.

"Not here, no. If you want me to show you somewhere more private I can," Leo said firmly. He wasn't going to just jump on the stage and go "this is how it's done, scrubs." That would be egotistical and stupid.

She laughed at him and crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Feeling shy? You danced on television, you know," she teased.

"You saw that?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone saw that. It was blasted all over YouTube."

"Of course it was. But this is different," Leo said, rolling his eyes. Link poked his cheek, pointed to the stage, and shook his head. "See? Even Link agrees," Cynthia just laughed at him as they stood there, watching the show. And that was mostly how he spent his day, wandering about the festivities until the sun fell, and they split up to feed their respective teams. She said she had some training to do as well, which Leo took as her wanting to meditate with her Spiritomb. Which was all fine and well, but boring for Leo to sit around and watch, so he went off to do his own thing.

There was only one problem though; he had the itch. He'd seen the Bellossom dancing, they'd been talking about it, and with all this serious stuff that had been going on he just wanted a break. So off he went as the moon started to rise, leaving his hotel and heading off into the jungle, letting his team out as he went.

He set up in a small opening in the dense jungle, out of sight of the routes, and slowly started going through his martial stances. It was a slow thing at first, methodical and calm, with Link and Sunny slowly following him through the forms. Diana wiggled along with him from where she sat propped up against a tree, just happy to be there and humming what Leo vaguely recognized as a song through her air vents, and Xena joining in moments later. The gentle clanging of her scales as she slipped into a dance alongside Leo, Sunny, and Link.

Stein and Santiago watched on, the latter humming along with the tune, water burbling in the back of his throat, while Zuko slunk around the clearing, sniffing everything. Spiritomb whispered in his ears as he slid into the dance he vaguely recalled the Lucario from when he fought Boone leading him through, the ghost slid its tendrils of darkness up his arms, mimicking him in its own way.

He did not stop. For thirty minutes he danced, all thoughts fleeing his mind as he stomped the ground and spun, following Xena through the dragon dance. He could feel it, as Sunny scrambled up his leg to jump off his shoulder, soaring through the air and spinning, the little kung-fu weasel having long since started her own dance. But to Leo's eyes, it wasn't a wild, crazy, out-of-tune dance that wasn't choreographed to the rest of the world. It was hers, and hers alone. He could feel it, as he continued to move, taking on the movements of the Bellossom dance.

His thoughts completely faded, leaving him alone in the jungle with his team, listening and dancing to the tune. An entire orchestra hummed beneath his feet, guiding and responding to his movements in turn. He could hear it all, and felt everything. Fire burned in his chest, grass grew beneath his feet; the calm focus of Santiago bled over a connection he could feel, a connection that he shared with every other member of his team; save for Stein, whose connection was tenuous at best.

But he spared it no more thought, continuing to dance and pushing deeper into what he felt. There was something more there, and he wanted to see it. But the harder he pushed, the further away it seemed, so he relaxed and let it come to him. Sweat poured down his body as he moved, muscles burning pleasantly as he bobbed and flowed and moved to the tune he was hearing.

He danced. He danced to Diana's tune; a deep thrumming sound that reverberated through his chest and spoke of the sheer joy of life, the love of living, and the thrill of discovery. He danced to the crackling of Zuko's fires, as he lay watching the proceedings, the bonfire they danced around, and followed Spiritomb through a half dozen broken dances, two stronger than the rest, before he finally turned inwards.

His own dance. He could feel it, though he didn't know what he was feeling. It was there, it was waiting for him, and when he took the first step he tripped and fell face-first into what he had been seeking.

It washed over him like a wave, accompanied by a single musical note that he vaguely recognized, as he crashed to the ground and rolled over onto his back. For a brief moment he could see the jungle, the entire interconnected web of life, laid out before him. He could only understand a fraction of it – all the trees, and grasses, and ferns, and pokemon talking to one another in a speech so soft and profound even utter silence could not reveal it – and in that fraction, he had a vision.

It was different than the vision he'd had when touching Celebi's shrine, that one had been clearer and far easier to understand. This one was faded, and jumped about far too much; there was a tree, its branches wide and covered in leafy foliage, casting shade on a hillside; he saw the Tapus, felt the ocean breeze, and listened to the sounds of battle; he saw Victoria twice, once laying on a hospital bed, the second standing in the middle of a cracked stone shrine; and he saw oceans and mountains and the silence of nature, in particular, a single mountain rising high above the rest in its chain.

He instinctively knew what it was, he didn't know how, but he knew. Mt. Coronet.

"Foo!" Sunny giggled, moving over and collapsing next to Leo and snuggling up into his side. He let out a long breath and wiped his brow, feeling absolutely exhausted now. Link moved over and patted Leo's face, looking none the worse for wear, and highly amused.

"Bell," he said.

"Did either of you see that?" Leo asked rhetorically as Xena made her way over, glancing at Sunny, snorting, and sitting down on the other side of Leo, her tail pressed up against him. The thrumming of vents alerted Leo to Diana rapidly approaching, and with a surge of movement Xena stood, grunting as she stopped Diana from ramming into everyone. With a snort of amusement and a happy wiggle from Diana Xena promptly picked Leo up by one arm, laid Diana down, and plopped him down against her side. He remained silent through the entire thing, thoroughly amused and patting Diana's side fondly as Sunny scrambled to take up position in his lap, and Xena laid down not too far away.

"I'll take that as a no," Leo said, shaking his head. With a sigh he closed his eyes, and silently absorbed what he'd seen. It felt almost like a question, somehow, but he didn't know what. But it did instill in him concern. Something was coming, something big. He just didn't know what, even if he had a suspicion. Still, as he drifted off to sleep his last thoughts were not of doomsday and all the other crazy things that were going to happen in the world – they would resolve themselves, eventually, though Leo was loathe to leave everything to a kid like Ash. His last thoughts were of Victoria. Twice now he'd had a vision of her in a hospital bed, though this time there was a secondary vision.

If, somehow, he was able to help avert an outcome where Victoria was crippled or killed – which he automatically assumed was the case from the visions – he would. So long as he didn't damn himself in the process.

"I hate YouTube," Cynthia and Victoria said at almost the exact same time. Leo blinked from where he lay on the ground with Zuko, looking up at the picnic table that said two women ate their meals at. Well, Leo said meals, but Cynthia was plowing her way through a bowl of ice cream the size of her own head, and Victoria was angrily picking at what could only best be described as a pulled pork sandwich. Leo wasn't actually sure what kind of meat it was, since it couldn't be pork, but it looked and tasted similar enough. Lusamine and her kids were off at the ice cream stand getting dessert, this being the celebration she had promised to Leo. It was small, and simple, and everything Leo liked.

Sure, he would've liked a fancy meal, but something simple like sitting around a picnic table eating good food was just as good. Besides, she didn't have long until she had to get back to Aether to do more work.

"You do?" he asked, scratching Zuko's head as the fire type squirmed. "Sit still, you oaf. We need to clean you up a bit," he admonished, running a comb through Zuko's short blue fur. The fire type whined, having already been sitting here for the past ten minutes, but Leo was undaunted. He'd rolled in something earlier, and it still had his fur all matted up and sticky despite having washed it a few times, and burned it with fire.

"It's just an ego trip for people who want attention," Victoria spat.

"People have no idea what is and is not acceptable to record," Cynthia said in disgust, dropping her pokedex on the table.

"How so?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. Call him jaded, but he kind of expected that from people. His world's YouTube had been great for some things, but…there was a lot of mess up stuff on there too. Though he was morbidly curious as to how that would look in this world.

"They posted a video of Deino somewhere in Unova, even told everyone where it was, and twelve stupid trainers ran off to go catch them. Fourteen people died from the mama Hydreigon's wrath because of it," Cynthia spat.

"I saw that. Idiots will be idiots; there's a reason we try to regulate information about where rare and dangerous pokemon are. The spread of said information isn't illegal, per se, but we try to manage it so it doesn't get out of hand. It's why Indigo hasn't allowed YouTube into the region yet; it just exacerbates the problem," Victoria said, reaching down and petting Prince's head. The Persian purred and leaned into her touch, though his eyes were locked onto Leo and his comb. If he didn't know better, Leo would say he was jealous.

"To make matters worse, some idiot posted a video of Mespirit on YouTube, somewhere west of Mount Coronet. The league caught the video and removed it in half an hour, but that apparently wasn't quick enough. Just today a group of people swarmed the location to try and capture it," Cynthia grumbled.

"Did they succeed?" Leo asked, whipping his head around as his stomach twisted into knots.

"No. It was just a bunch of teenagers who didn't know any better, but they didn't succeed. If the report is right they did see the legendary, though, and she flung their pokeballs back at them before teleporting away," Cynthia said.

"How do you know all that?" Victoria asked, furrowing her brows. Cynthia smiled thinly.

"I work closely with the Sinnoh League; I am planning on becoming Champion, and a few of the current Elite Four have voiced their support for me. The current Champion is getting older and looking for a successor anyways," she explained. Victoria nodded.

"Just teenagers?" Leo pressed, still stuck on the topic. "Not part of some bigger organization?"

"No, just kids," Cynthia said. "Who else would be stupid enough to try to catch a legendary?"

"You'd be surprised," Victoria said dryly, meeting Leo's eyes and raising an eyebrow. Leo gave her a look, and she scowled. "Why?" she pressed.

"Ah, I was just worried that something like a team would be put together to do something like that," Leo said, putting heavy emphasis on the word team in hopes Victoria picked up on it. Judging by her expression she did, mouthing the word Giovanni? Leo shook his head. "Different than that, though," he explained without explaining. Victoria grumbled and dropped her face into her hands as Cynthia looked on, confused. "I guess it will be years before people start getting organized about it. Catching legendaries, I mean; sure, information may be spread around a lot more, but how successful can catching a legendary be?" he asked, though the words felt hollow in his throat as a sudden realization came to him.

The spread of information. Wasn't that part of the games, too? Legendary pokemon were usually a mystery in the games as best he remembered, though not so much the anime. That may have been intentional – in fact, that may be why it took so long for the Big Bads of whatever region to get their plans started. They lacked information on the legendary pokemon, and had to gather and plan as they built up their powerbase. But, if YouTube and whatever other "inventions" Jack came up with in the future accelerated the passing of information, wouldn't that also accelerate the plot?

Zuko nudged Leo's hand and whined, earning himself a smile as he resumed the brushing. He had full confidence that whatever plots the Teams could come up with would be resolved one way or another, after all, the legendary pokemon were usually in Trios for a reason, but it did concern him. What if this was more like the anime, and this time Ash wasn't around to save the world because the timeline had been accelerated?

Did Leo now have to run around cleaning up the mess that Jack unintentionally left lying around? That would so piss him off.

"Team Galactic," Leo muttered, shaking his head.

"Is that their name?" Victoria asked, obviously having overheard. Leo nodded, startled though he was, and she nodded back, turning towards Cynthia.

"What?" Cynthia asked, confused.

"If I were you, I'd start looking into something called Team Galactic," Victoria said bluntly.

"Do you mean Galaxy Team?" Cynthia asked, cocking her head to the side. "They're a company in Sinnoh revolving around energy. Used to be a research group, way back when Sinnoh was called the Hisui region. Why should I look into them?" she asked.

Leo sighed, but Victoria took the reigns.

"Leo has minor precognitive abilities," she said simply. "They're incredibly unreliable and uncontrollable, but he's been right about a few major things so far. If he says that Team Galactic will be a problem, it's worth double checking,"

"But he's dark," Cynthia argued, seemingly not following that logic. "You're saying he's psychic too?"

"Dark is just another facet of aura, but no, he's not psychic. Not in the fullest sense of the word. But he has had run-ins with legendary pokemon, same as the rest of us, and you know what that can do to you," Victoria explained, and Cynthia nodded in realization. Leo hummed and thought about that. Well, that was fair enough. He only had a vision when Celebi was around the first time, and he can't say he didn't come away from meeting Articuno unchanged either.

It was intimidating, knowing something that big was out there.

Also mildly infuriating, knowing how small he was in comparison to an arguably lesser legendary.

"Whatcha talkin' 'bout?" Lillie asked, scampering back over to the group and plopping down right beside Prince, leaning fearlessly into the Persian. Leo stared in horror as Prince licked the top of Lillie's head affectionately. Since when was that thing capable of affection?

Then Prince returned to glaring at Leo, and he relaxed. That was much better. Much less alarming than Prince being kind.

"Adult stuff, Lillie," Gladion said, sliding onto the table next to Victoria. "Probably how badly Leo's going to get stomped by Kukui,"

"You don't think he has a chance?" Cynthia asked, not so subtly changing the topic now that children who were non-trainers were at the table.

"We're going to get massacred if I make it that far. It's going to be awesome," Leo said, genuinely excited. He'd watched a few of the man's matches over the past few days, and the man was an absolute monster of a battler. Not as good as Victoria, but it was pure art watching him battle. Not because it was beautiful, but because it was almost poetic; Kukui had an innate ability to choose the correct move to use at the most opportune moment, in ways that surprised even Victoria. They'd overcome seemingly impossible challenges through sheer skill and willpower alone – Leo was going to be creamed by him, and he couldn't wait for it.

It would be the first underdog match he'd had in a while, one that wasn't life-threatening at least.

"Kukui is a Professor-in-training that's studying pokemon moves. What better way to get information than the heat of battle?" Victoria said, smirking. "He's a brat who enjoys taking his shirt off too much, but even I can't deny that he's skilled. Once the mess in Kanto is taken care of, he'll probably go challenge them like I did,"

Leo nodded as the conversation continued, Lusamine eventually coming over and sitting down with them, handing Leo a chocolate-chip ice-cream cup and joining in on the conversation, eventually steering it to the style conversation she'd had with him. He just listened, not contributing much, and entertained Lillie and Gladion after they got bored of the talking. He always kept one ear on the conversation, though, just in case he missed something important.

Eventually, though, it came to an end. Something beeped on Victoria's pokedex and she flipped it open with a scowl. Then she left, muttering something about idiots and faulty detectors before flying off – but not before Leo made sure to tell her to be careful. There he'd been, talking to himself about helping Victoria avoid being crippled or killed, and there he went adding more onto her plate with Galactic. He hated being where he was – stuck somewhere between being able and unable to help. After all, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he could actually take on an entire criminal organization on his own. Not like the games. Not like a Champion.

Which left him with Lusamine, her kids, and Cynthia, walking through the fair grounds as they headed towards the open fields. Lusamine had to get back to Aether in an hour to put her kids to bed and do some work, and so he was walking her to the ride area – where she could call her ride pokemon. Cynthia was coming along because she had become invested in talking to Lusamine about wildlife preservation, and the work that Aether did in creating medicines as well as protecting wildlife populations.

"Does Sinnoh not have an Aether branch?" Leo asked.

"No. They've always rebuffed my efforts to extend a branch there citing that they have their own methods of protecting the region," Lusamine said, not as a criticism but as a statement of fact.

"The rangers do a good job, but in recent years the training world has been evolving faster than they can adapt. Sinnoh can be very traditional at times, even if we do tend to be forward-thinking, so the upper echelons have resisted too much external influence," Cynthia explained. "Which is ironic, considering that the International Police was our idea in the first place,"

"They've run into far too many problems to be as effective as we all wish and know they could be. Far too much resistance from other regions," Lusamine said with a sigh, scooping Lillie up into her arms from where the little girl stumbled. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, leaning her head against Lusamine's shoulder and closing her eyes tiredly.

Leo nodded in agreement. The Faba fiasco highlighted that; they didn't have enough authority in Alola to get their highest-ranking officers out here, which meant it wasn't handled as efficiently or cleanly as it could have been. That had been a major factor to Faba's initial escape, despite him having been caught by Leo not but a few minutes later.

With a yawn he turned his attention to the night sky, visible even through the light pollution of the tournament grounds, only to be drawn back to the conversation when he picked up the word Magearna being thrown around.

"Do you know what Magearna is?" Lusamine asked curiously, making Cynthia shrug.

"I originally thought it was just a name, but the few records I've been able to find have suggested the potential for it to be otherwise," Cynthia started, Lusamine listening closely and not letting anything that might betray she knew more than she let on, onto her face. Leo listened closely as well, gauging Lusamine's reaction and trying to be nonchalant about it as he fell in step beside and just slightly behind them.

But for whatever reason, he couldn't pay attention. Something was tickling at his senses, pulling him away from the conversation and towards their surroundings. It was late. The moon was out, hanging full overhead, and there was nobody out and about in this part of the tournament grounds – most people had already gone home, so the staging area for ride pokemon was empty. Four landing pads for fliers were unmanned and left completely alone; not an uncommon thing, actually. This time of night it was to be expected, all things considered.

"The teleporter should be here soon," Lusamine said during a lull in conversation. "Normally I wouldn't use them so frivolously, but with the kids here…" she trailed off, pointing her chin to Lillie pointedly, the girl fast asleep on her mom's shoulder. Gladion scowled a little and rubbed his eyes, fighting back a yawn.

"Not going to lie; if I had the resources, I would abuse teleporters maliciously; a journey is all nice and good, but sometimes you just want to get where you're going," Cynthia said with a laugh. Leo turned around, glancing at the night sky and unable to shake the feeling that something was coming.

It nagged at him, and nagged, to the point where he could no longer ignore it as paranoia.

To the north was the tournament grounds proper, lights still shining on the big, main arena and the smaller stadiums, though they were slowly flickering off or dimming. To the south was dense jungle, the thick foliage pushing up against the cordoned off "ride pokemon" area, while only a few buildings lay to the east and west. If they had to run, Leo gave the south the best chance of success –

"Cool it, Leo," he muttered, shaking his head and pulling his hand away from his pokeballs, having instinctively reached for them with all the alarm bells going off in his head. There was no reason to be alarmed –

Then a flash of pink darted across the night sky, a ball of pink moonlight rocketing out from it and impacting a smaller, darker form. Leo's eyes widened as the creature was blasted away, only for another shape to rise up behind the pink pokemon; illuminated against the full moon, he was able to see its silhouette for all it was.

He immediately released Stein.

"Defend mode," he barked, and the chimeric pokemon settled into a stance, not making a sound but clearly ready for action.

"Leo," Lusamine said, confusion lacing her tone.

"Nihilego. Do you have any pokemon on you?" Leo asked, pointing to where what he assumed was a Tapu was engaging with the two Ultra Beasts. Lusamine's expression immediately stiffened, shifting from horror to shock as she looked up, tightening her grip on Lillie and wrapping a protective arm around Gladion.

"Only my Clefable," she said softly.

"What is going on?" Cynthia asked.

"Prepare for multiple legendary-class hostiles, potentially incoming. Two are engaged with the island Tapu, but prepare for more. Stein, guard Lusamine. How long until the teleporter arrives?" Leo barked, Stein immediately straightening up and dashing over to Lusamine as he released Diana. To her credit, Cynthia did not question anything further. She simply pressed one of the pokeballs at her waist, and let out her Togetic.

"Maybe three minutes," Lusamine said grimly. "I just hit the distress beacon, but hopefully soon."

That was all the time they got. A horrendous screech filled the night air as something came hurtling towards them. Diana hummed angrily, the Pupitar levitating a solid foot off the ground as she turned to face the attacker. Leo let out Xena as well, narrowing his eyes at the thin pokémon gleaming in the moonlight, its silver and green body shining and two katana-like arms waving menacingly.

"EVADE!" he shouted, jumping to the side as the Kartana rocketed towards them. Diana aborted the charge she was about to make, juking to the side as it flew past, cleaving through one of her spikes with all the ease of a knife through hot butter. Leo cursed loudly, unable to reach for Zuko's pokeball as he had to scramble, the sword-like pokemon choosing to chase him, of all people. "Use fire! Don't block! It can cut through a lot!" he shouted, not remembering much about Kartana besides it being dual grass/steel, and being really, really sharp. Spiritomb hissed and roused itself, dark tendrils lashing out at Kartana, only to be cut to pieces as it rapidly approached.

Xena roared and spat a dragon breath at Kartana, the draconic flames washing over the pokemon and drawing its attention away from Leo long enough to let him release Zuko.

"Flamethrower!" Leo ordered, glancing over to Lusamine to make sure she was ok. He cursed, seeing that Stein was currently engaged with a Nihilego that had appeared out of nowhere, the flying jellyfish monster struggling to throw him off. That left her alone as another Nihilego descended from the sky, this one far bigger than any of the others. The night lit up as Zuko caught Kartana with a flamethrower, the ultra beast screeching in pain as it shot out of the flames and into the night sky, Zuko tracking it with swift stars and embers as it raced higher.

A tremendous roar split the night air as Cynthia let out her Garchomp, the massive blue dragon leaping into the air with a single bound, crashing into the Nihilego descending on Lusamine with all the fury it could muster, tackling it to the side. Her Lucario appeared next, the fighting type darting forward without question and slapping a force-palm into another Ultra-Beast that came crawling out of the jungle. This one was long and sinuous, crackling with electricity and looking for all the world like a power line of some sort.

"That's an electric type!" Leo shouted, pointing to the Xurkitree as it blasted Lucario with a thunderbolt and pressed the release buttons for all his pokemon – save for Rockruff, who was back at Aether Paradise – and began shouting orders. Alarms blared in the distance as a bolt of crackling yellow split the night sky, Tapu Koko engaging something in the skies above as the fight devolved into chaos.

Sunny leapt to engage the Nihilego with Stein, Link joining up with Xena to engage with another Nihilego that had appeared, Zuko keeping Kartana at bay with his flames, while Diana shot into the sky to intercept yet another Nihilego. Where had all these things come from?!

"Lusamine!" Leo roared over Lillie's screams. Her Clefable appeared in a flash of light, immediately stepping into a guard stance and charging up a moonblast. He was immediately distracted, however, as Spiritomb shrieked in his ear and yanked him backwards with its tendrils. Kartana shot by with blinding speed, a howl from Zuko indicating that it had dodged past his flamethrowers. Zuko blurred by, flames cloaking his form as another flamethrower ripped through the air, this time catching Kartana.

Leo skidded to a halt and looked to Santiago, who was helping Stein put down his Nihilego, all while the Xurkitree blasted half of Cynthia's team with lighting, the pokemon weathering the attacks surprisingly well. But that left her mostly unguarded, a Nihilego descending from the sky on top of her while two more descended towards Lusamine and her kids. Her Clefable fired attack after attack, but it did little more than annoy the ultra-beasts.

"Sunny, fake out, Santi, guard!" Leo barked, Spiritomb swirling up around him and spitting a shadow ball towards one of the two heading towards Lusamine. Santiago turned his attention away from Stein and immediately blasted another Nihilego with a psychic, getting that one's attention. Sunny, on the other hand, crossed the distance between her and Cynthia in a matter of a half second, leaping into the air using her shoulder as a springboard, and slapping a fake out into the descending Nihilego. It did little more than shock the pokemon, but that was more than enough time for Cynthia's Mismagius to take notice and engage to distract the creature.

"Thanks!" Cynthia shouted, directing her Glaceon as it joined up with Link and Xena. Leo nodded, took a step forward, and immediately jumped a foot in the air as Diana crashed to the ground next to him, unmoving. He gaped at her, then looked to the skies and where she'd fallen from.

Three Tapu pokemon engaged with a horde of Nihilego in the skies above, not falling back, but unable to keep them all from descending towards Leo and the others. Two cracks in the sky had appeared, ultra wormholes, with more ultra beasts flowing out even as they slowly closed. But Diana hadn't made the mistake of engaging with them, no, she had been bodily tossed aside by the Nihilego Santiago had been harassing, the one that now shot a power gem at him hard enough to knock him off his feet.

He struggled to rise, and Leo immediately recalled both him and Diana, then let Santiago out again next to Lusamine.

"Heal!" Leo barked. "Cynthia, circle up around Lusamine! We need to keep them off us long enough for the Tapu to clear the skies! To me!" Leo shouted over the chaos. Cynthia nodded her affirmation and barked a few orders, calmly walking towards Lusamine as she huddled with her kids, repeatedly mashing her finger against panic button on her phone. Lillie huddled beneath her while Gladion watched everything with wide eyes, unable to take his eyes from the chaos.

"Gather!" Leo roared again, sprinting across the distance to skid to a halt in front of Lusamine, half expecting the teleporter to arrive before he got there. It didn't, but that didn't necessarily mean it was a good thing.

"Recall Link!" Santiago roared, strain written all over his face as he held back a Nihilego with sheer force of psychic power. Spiritomb hissed and left Leo's pocket for a moment, tendrils of darkness lashing out and shadow balls spitting into the air as Leo turned his attention to Link and Xena; Xena tearing into a Nihilego with dragon claws as it wrapped its tendrils around the unmoving form of Link, the remains of a substitute shield shattered on the ground. Leo immediately recalled him, then Xena too, as the Nihilego slapped her with a tentacle and sent her sprawling. He let her out again right next to him, the dragon wincing and growling as she stood.

Many things happened at once then. Xurkitree fell to the onslaught of Cynthia's Gastrodon, Lucario, and Roserade, freeing up more combatants to engage the others. Stein let go of his fallen opponent to rush at Cynthia's Garchomp, the great dragon battling two more ultra beasts – one a Pheromosa, the other a strange humanoid looking one with a ball for a head – while Leo recalled Santiago when he was struck by another power gem, knocking him out cold. The jungle behind him came alive, trees and vines lashing out against all opponents as the fourth and final Tapu, Tapu Bulu, rushed out of the jungle and into the skies with a bellow of rage, taking one of the problem Nihilego with him.

The arrival of the newcomer gave Kartana pause, giving Zuko a chance to disengage and roar at the Nihilego Spiritomb was battling in the sky just twenty feet above Leo's head, and Sunny leapt up on Gladion's shoulder, trembling but holding a steady stance as she waited for something to approach.

Kartana did something he didn't expect, then; slashing at the air repeatedly until it literally split open, revealing another ultra wormhole, and disappearing inside. Xena growled and ran forward, meeting the Nihilego Santiago had been keeping at bay head-on, stalling it for a precious few seconds. Panic welled up in his chest as she struggled against the beast, Zuko rushing in to join the fray, savaging the beast with flaming claws and fangs.

Too much was happening at once; a Nihilego descended on Lusamine, and though Sunny was already slamming force palm after force palm into the beast's tentacles as they lowered to grab the trio, he had nothing else to really help her with besides jumping in himself. But that turned out to be unnecessary, as an Abra teleported in and teleported out with her and the kids in tow in a split second, the Nihilego vanishing with them. Leo cursed aloud – that meant their teleporter would most likely be stalled for another few seconds after having teleported all those people and pokemon.

Seconds they didn't have. Cynthia recalled her Togetic as it fell to a power gem, her Roserade not far behind, having sustained too much damage from the Xurkitree. Her Glaceon still fought valiantly, waves of ice shooting into the sky and keeping the five Nihilego left unsure of what to do against the biting cold, while her Lucario, Garchomp, and Stein all slowly pushed back the Pheromosa and the ball-head pokemon.

Spiritomb shrieked, letting go of the Nihilego above as it fled into the ultra wormhole Kartana had created, vanishing from this plane of existence. Leo cursed and recalled Xena and Zuko as the Nihilego threw them off, hoping to spare them the pain of crashing and planning to let them out again immediately after – only for a bolt of lighting as wide as Leo was tall to annihilate the ultra beast, Tapu Koko descending a moment later to grab the stunned jellyfish thing, fly towards the newly made wormhole, and slam dunk it through the portal before shooting back up into the skies, cackling like a madman all the while.

"We just need to hold for a bit longer!" Cynthia shouted, only a few feet away from Leo. He nodded to her but immediately reacted as he beheld the Nihilego behind her, already reaching out to wrap her in its tentacles.

"MOVE!" He roared, but it was too late. It grabbed her by the arms and legs, pulling her backwards with a scream as it moved towards the wormhole, intent on escaping with its prize. The logical part of Leo's mind told him he should have expected this, as without Lusamine to direct their seeming fascination with her and her family – which had been a major point last time he'd met a Nihilego – towards either himself or Cynthia, the only other blonde in the area. The part that was in control of his body moved. He crossed the distance and leapt at Nihilego, grabbing Cynthia's arm as she thrashed and shouted orders at her pokemon, digging his feet into the ground and pulling.

Nihilego paused for a crucial moment, as if unsure what to do with the sudden interference, giving Cynthia's Lucario enough time to blur across the battlefield in an extremespeed and slam into it. The ultra beast flinched, but ultimately didn't let go as it continued to rise in the air, more tentacles extending to wrap around Leo's limbs, lifting him into the air as well as he continued to try to pull Cynthia out.

"Stein!" Leo bellowed, Spiritomb hissing in fury and extending its tendrils to help pull Nihilego's tentacles away from himself and Cynthia. An aura sphere impacted the side of Nihilego, and a roar of fury indicated Garchomp finally taking note of the situation, though from the sounds of combat it was still locked in battle. The blonde girl thrashed again, hissing in pain the same moment Leo felt something inject itself into his veins from the Nihilego, immediately flooding him with fury.

As if he wasn't pissed enough already.

"Icy wind," Leo growled, grabbing hold of a tentacle with his free hand, tensing, and flipping himself around so he was upside down, his feet bracing themselves against the Nihilego's bulbous head and chest in Cynthia's face. With a grunt he placed one hand on Cynthia's shoulder, and began to push down.

"Get off of me!" Cynthia shouted, thrashing even harder now, slowly coming free from Nihilego's grasp. Another aura sphere impacted Nihilego, followed by Lucario leaping into the air and slamming a bone rush staff into the tentacles that held both Leo and Cynthia, forcing them to loosen further. Spiritomb continued to combat Nihilego, a shadow ball impacting the underside of Nihilego's head while the ghost itself tried to cut the tentacles off. That was followed by another aura sphere as Lucario fell, knocking Nihilego further into the air towards the wormhole, but loosening its grip just enough for Leo to give one more good shove.

He pushed down on Cynthia's shoulders, nearly coming free himself, and she dropped twenty feet to the ground.

Spiritomb screamed, detonating another, massive shadow ball in Nihilego's face, giving him just enough room to wiggle free – and then one of the ultra beasts exploded.

Just as Victoria teleported in, multiple Abra at her side, just as a bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky and two other Tapu descended to aid in the fighting, just as Cynthia's Garchomp and Stein seemed to put down one of the final Ultra Beasts, the red and white and yellow clown-looking one; said ultra beast grabbed its detachable, ball-like head, tossed it into the air, and it exploded. Spiritomb screamed again, surging forth to protect Leo, darkness covering half of his body as the explosion hit him and Nihilego. Heat seared the side of Leo's face, forcing a scream out of him, as the concussive blast caught him and Nihilego, and tossed them through the wormhole.

The world faded, a pinprick of light in the distance as a swirling multicolored tunnel spun into existence around them, Nihilego screeching and careening wildly out of control as space slipped past. Fear spiked through Leo, overcoming the rage he felt, as he stopped struggling – not wanting to go wherever Nihilego was going, but also not wanting to wind up in the middle of nowhere space.

Well, that and he couldn't breathe.

"Hold still!" a new voice suddenly called echoing in his mind. Nihilego was blasted backwards by an unseen force, and a blue bubble appeared around Leo as Lunala tore through space, snatching up Leo as he greedily gulped down breaths of air that had miraculously arrived with the bubble of force around him. The giant space bat flapped its wings once, reversing their trajectory and flying backwards, away from the fleeing Nihilego. "I gotcha, don't worry – oh ARCEUS WHY NOW?!"

Leo's head whipped to the side, a lance of pain accompanying the motion as a black blur slammed into Lunala, forcing the giant bat off course. Space around them twisted, light bending towards the prismatic black pokemon – Necrozma – and Lunala fired a beam of light at it before darting away.

"Crap, crap, crap! Why are you awake?! Where's Solgaleo when you need him?!" Lunala cursed, speeding down the tunnel through space as Necromza pursued, laser beams shooting out of its everywhere. Spiritomb hissed in Leo's ears as Lunala juked around the lasers frantically, doing barrel rolls and flips that would have killed Leo were he being subjected to gravity right now. "I'm going to have to put you down somewhere while I deal with this! Eldritch entities that eat legendary pokemon typically take precedence, sorry!" she shouted, all that information passing to Leo in a fraction of a second.

He understood that sentiment. He didn't like it, but he understood it. Lunala continued to dodge as more lasers shot past, shooting by what looked to be branches in the tunnel of light that was the interior of an ultra wormhole. Were Leo not in pain and currently fearing for his life and the life of his team, he might have found it pretty.

"No, no, not there…there!" she shouted, and darted towards a wormhole.

Only for Necrozma to slam into her, knocking her slightly off course and through another wormhole. The world twisted around them and Leo crashed to the ground, the blue bubble popping as Lunala grappled with Necrozma, finally freeing herself with a blast of energy and flying high into the sky.

"This one's ok, too! Sorry, gotta run!" Lunala screeched, opening another wormhole and vanishing inside, Necrozma following right behind her. Leo winced as she touched his mind once more, just before vanishing, and dropped a bit of information into his head. He winced and resolved to digest it later, as he stood, gingerly touching his face and hissing in pain, and looked up and around at his surroundings. He froze, and stared. A ruined city rose around him, sky scrapers half-broken with vines growing up their sides, cracked and shattered streets overgrown with vegetation. No people moved in the city, in fact nothing did.

"What. The. Fuck."