On Tuesday evening, the wind had scattered the clouds, and moonlight came through the ornate window of the city lord's mansion in long, still beams. Lucien finished his paperwork and let his eyes rest on the parchment portrait of Calyrex lying on the desk.
Outside, a Bug-type Pokémon called out once and went quiet. Inside, the candles burned steadily, and the room held the particular peaceful silence of late-night work winding down.
Dragonite, Volcarona, Serperior, and Kyurem rested in the candlelight, simply present. Zacian lay stretched out on a soft rug that Lucien had arranged specifically for them. Zamazenta was not in the room.
A soft sound came from outside the door, and Chelsea stepped in.
"Your Majesty, as instructed, Calyrex's portrait has been posted at the post station outside the city. Passing travelers and merchants both know the name of the King of Abundance now."
Lucien set down his pen. "How have the townspeople responded?"
"With genuine warmth," Chelsea said, the candlelight reflected in his eyes. "Many of the farmers have begun praying before the portrait each morning, asking for his blessing on next year's barley crop."
"Good." Lucien nodded. All that was left now was to wait. If Calyrex was what he understood it to be, a being of high intelligence with awareness that spanned past, present, and future, and a genuine compassion for the people under its care, the growing wave of faith and belief being built in this city would not go unnoticed for long.
A soft scraping sound came from outside the window. Lucien glanced over and caught the unmistakable shape of a large red Pokémon moving past.
"Zamazenta went to the kitchen again?"
Before he had finished saying it, Zamazenta's broad form nudged through the doorway, berry juice still visible around its mouth. It glanced at Zacian, then at Lucien, then settled itself down beside its sibling with an air of composure that might have been convincing if not for the berry stains. It began to clean its face with its tongue in an unhurried, dignified manner.
Lucien reached over and scratched behind Zamazenta's ear.
Zamazenta froze. Its eyes went wide.
"There was a little dust," Lucien said, his expression entirely composed.
Zamazenta, being genuinely polite, accepted this explanation without question and offered its quiet thanks through telepathy.
Chelsea cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, should I deploy people to search outside the city for any sign of Calyrex?"
Lucien thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No need. Calyrex follows its own nature. When the faith is strong enough, it will find us. It's late, Chelsea. Go and rest."
Chelsea bowed and left.
The room settled into quiet. Then Zacian's voice entered Lucien's mind, unhurried and direct.
This Slumbering Town of yours. It's not like the other human cities we have seen.
Lucien looked at it with mild surprise. "Oh?"
The people here are content. And there are Pokémon everywhere, living as though they belong. In our experience, humans and Pokémon do not share space that way.
Lucien smiled. "In Unova, it's like this everywhere. If you ever have the chance, come and see it. On that land, humans and Pokémon are simply part of the same life."
Zacian was quiet for a moment.
We know, it said.
The following morning, a letter arrived from Unova by Flying Pokémon courier.
Lucien opened it and read.
The news from Kanto was good. The campaign had been underway for months, and Geralt's forces had moved through the fragmented region with decisive speed.
The Altaria corps had opened engagements from the air, Draco Meteor covering enemy positions in dense, overwhelming barrages that collapsed fortifications before ground forces were needed.
The Aggron Knights followed, their iron-hard bodies breaking through walls and formations alike. The first serious resistance, from the Blue Wind Principality west of Viridian Forest, had collapsed within half a day.
After that, the remaining small kingdoms either pledged loyalty to Queen Rin voluntarily, or were dismantled within days of choosing to hold out.
Casualties on all sides had been kept low. Geralt had followed Lucien's instructions precisely: after each city fell, stabilize the population first. Abolish the harsh systems immediately. Convey the same message everywhere: humans and Pokémon are not masters and property, but companions.
Across the Kanto Region, that message had begun to take root in ways that would outlast the campaign. Children reaching out to touch a calm Oddish. Farmers working the same rows as Sandshrew. Warriors who had once regarded Pokémon as tools or threats finding, gradually, that they were something else entirely.
In under two months, the Kanto Region had been unified.
Lucien let out a slow breath and felt the tension that had been sitting across his shoulders ease somewhat.
The letter also contained an update from Kalos. AZ and Floette had been making quiet but steady progress. With more Trainers sent in under League cover, and AZ applying direct pressure where persuasion had failed, the most obstructionist of the old noble families had stopped resisting openly.
The people of Kalos were beginning, slowly and carefully, to extend trust toward the Pokémon around them.
Lucien sat for a moment, then took out paper and wrote his reply.
Following the unification of Kanto, assist Queen Rin immediately in establishing the Kanto Pokémon League. Form a cooperative alliance with Unova and Kalos, complementing each other's strengths and jointly maintaining peace across all three regions.
He gave the letter to the messenger Pokémon and sent it on its way.
With Elif managing Unova's day-to-day affairs and Anna leading the Pokémon League, he had no serious concerns about what was happening at home. The foundations were solid enough to hold without him for now.
After lunch, he was settling back into his work when Chelsea appeared in the doorway, his face carrying an expression that did not quite match the calm afternoon.
"Your Majesty. Something has happened."
Lucien looked up. "What is it? Has the Royal Family finally made a move?"
"Outside the city, Your Majesty. The fields." Chelsea's voice was still slightly stunned. "The farmland we cleared and planted just recently, it's all blossomed and come to full harvest. Overnight."
Lucien went still.
He looked at Zacian.
The same understanding passed between them in the same instant.
"He's here," Lucien said, and stood.
"Who is here?" Chelsea asked, bewildered.
"Calyrex. He's been watching everything we've been doing." Lucien was already moving toward the door. Zacian rose and followed. Zamazenta, still slightly sticky around the mouth from a post-lunch visit to the kitchen, fell into step behind its sibling.
The group climbed the city wall quickly, and Lucien looked out across the farmland that yesterday had been green and unripe.
The fields that had been planted only recently were now covered entirely in golden barley, the stalks heavy and bowed with full grain. A great harvest, arrived overnight, without explanation.
The people who had gathered at the field's edge stood in stunned clusters, staring.
"What is this? Am I still asleep?"
"How did the barley grow so fast?"
The murmuring moved through the crowd, and then someone made the connection.
"The King of Abundance. It must be him."
"Lord Lucien was right! He heard our prayers!"
In the distance, moving at an unhurried pace through the far edge of the field, a Pokémon rode past on a magnificent purple horse: a small, distinctive figure with a large flower-bud crown, its gaze sweeping across the gathered crowd below the wall.
It seemed to hear the voices, or perhaps to simply feel the warmth behind them. A faint smile crossed Calyrex's face.
Then Calyrex looked up.
Its eyes met Lucien's across the distance.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Calyrex and Spectrier dissolved together into the air, as though they had simply decided not to be visible anymore.
Lucien was still watching the empty space where they had been when a blue light appeared directly in front of him.
Calyrex floated in midair, small and composed, its bright, attentive eyes fixed on Lucien. Chelsea, standing nearby, had time to register a flash of white light before his awareness gently departed.
Blue light wrapped around him, lifted him slightly off the ground, and settled him beside Calyrex in an easy, practiced motion. A moment later, Chelsea's mouth opened, and a voice came from it that was clearly not Chelsea's.
"Human. Were you looking for me?"
Lucien looked at Chelsea, who was unconscious and peacefully unaware of his current function as a communication relay.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Calyrex," Lucien said. "This isn't the best place to talk. Would you come inside with us?"
Calyrex gave a small, agreeable nod.
The lord's mansion dining room had not hosted a gathering quite like this before. Calyrex settled itself at one side of the table, small and unhurried, its crown catching the light. Zacian and Zamazenta sat across from it. Lucien took his seat with Kyurem and the others nearby. The maids brought tea and small dishes without being asked. Calyrex looked at all of it with open curiosity.
"You have gone to considerable trouble," it said, through Chelsea, who remained comfortably unconscious and would likely wake with no memory of any of this. "What is this about?"
Lucien began from the beginning.
Eternatus. A being that had fallen to this land from beyond the sky a very long time ago, currently sleeping but not indefinitely. When it woke, the energy it would release would cause ordinary Pokémon to become enormous and lose themselves to the power, and left unchecked, it would consume Galar entirely.
"We are asking for your cooperation," Zacian said, when Lucien had finished.
Zamazenta nodded firmly. "We need your strength to complete the Hero's Sword and the Hero's Shield. Together, we can face Eternatus when it wakes."
Calyrex listened to all of it with the expression of someone who had already considered the matter from several angles. Its gaze moved to Lucien, and something like gentle curiosity settled in its eyes.
"I have one question. How did you know about Eternatus?"
Lucien was quiet for a moment. "Because I have seen the future of the Galar Region with my own eyes."
Calyrex looked at him carefully. A long moment passed. Then something in its expression shifted, as though a piece of something had found the place it fit.
"I see," Calyrex said softly. "I understand, Lucien."
Lucien was slightly startled. What, specifically, did it understand? He wasn't sure, and Calyrex did not elaborate.
"I agree to your request," it continued. "I will remain here and work alongside you to face what is coming."
Zacian and Zamazenta both let out quiet breaths.
Zamazenta looked at Lucien. "So we make the weapons next?"
"We're still missing one person," Lucien said.
"Who?"
"Melmetal."
He turned toward Calyrex as he said it. The original sequence of events was clear in his memory: Calyrex, Melmetal, Zacian, and Zamazenta working together when Eternatus finally woke.
Melmetal providing the metal, Zacian and Zamazenta transforming it with their own power, Calyrex bestowing the King's Power to complete the transformation.
From that, the Hero of Many Battles forms had become the Crowned Sword and Crowned Shield, and together they had driven Eternatus back.
After that, Zacian and Zamazenta had gone to rest in Slumbering Weald, Calyrex had exhausted itself and fallen into a deep sleep, and the Galar Royal Family had quietly stepped into the gap, claiming the credit and building a legend around themselves that erased everyone else from the story.
Over the long years, Calyrex had been forgotten, its faith depleted, its memories fading, sleeping alone until the modern era.
None of that was going to happen this time.
"Calyrex, do you know where Melmetal can be found?"
Calyrex shook its head slowly. "I don't know its location."
Lucien frowned. Where had Zacian and Zamazenta's weapons come from in the original sequence of events? Something had supplied the metal. He was turning it over when Calyrex spoke again.
"However. When I first looked at you, I saw a brief image of your path ahead."
It paused.
"If you want to find Melmetal, go to another land and find a Pokémon called Hoopa. It will show you the way."
Lucien stilled.
Hoopa. If he remembered correctly, Hoopa was in the Kalos Region.
Which meant another trip to Kalos.
He sat with that for a moment, then quietly accepted it.
If that's what it takes, then that's where I go.
...
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