'Hoopa.'
Lucien knew it well. Hoopa had its own story: a being of tremendous power that had appeared before the residents of Dahara City in the Kalos Region long ago, taken food from the townspeople, and then repaid them many times over by bringing wealth and prosperity to the town through its rings.
Dahara City, once a small settlement, had grown into something considerable because of Hoopa's presence. The local people had revered it deeply.
Then one day, persuaded by the wrong voices, Hoopa had turned its immense power toward a demonstration of dominance, launching conflicts with other Legendary Pokémon that left Dahara City badly damaged.
It was not until a man named Ghris, carrying a power granted by Arceus, arrived and created the Prison Bottle that Hoopa's destructive power was sealed away.
After that, Hoopa could only exist in its smaller, contained form, its greater self locked behind the bottle, until circumstances in a later era finally helped it understand what that experience had meant.
"Dahara City," Lucien murmured to himself.
The complication was that this era was thousands of years before the Pokémon League had been established, and Hoopa's presence in Dahara City was not guaranteed. But that was a problem with a possible solution.
The Kalos Region had a Legendary Pokémon that distributed its cells throughout the entire region to observe and maintain ecological order. If anyone in Kalos knew where Hoopa was, it would be Zygarde.
And the trip to Kalos served a second purpose as well. The region was now under AZ's management, with the abolition of slavery ongoing and the new social framework slowly taking hold. It would be worth seeing the progress firsthand.
Two purposes, one journey.
"I'll leave for Kalos immediately," Lucien said.
He raised his eyes to Calyrex, sitting composed and upright across the table, then to Zacian and Zamazenta, then to Chelsea waiting nearby.
"While I'm away, watch Slumbering Town carefully. Don't give the Galar Royal Family any opening to cause trouble, and stay alert for any sign of the Eternatus anomaly."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Chelsea bowed.
Zacian and Zamazenta exchanged a look, then communicated through telepathy in the direction of Lucien's mind. Go without worry. Zamazenta and I will remain here and protect the people of this city.
Lucien was working to create weapons that would help them face a genuine existential threat. The least they could do was protect his territory while he worked toward it.
Zamazenta nodded, its expression serious and steady for once.
Calyrex set down its teacup with delicate precision. "I have agreed to cooperate. I will remain here and keep this place stable."
Lucien looked at Kyurem. He had been considering leaving Reshiram behind as an additional guardian, but with Zacian, Zamazenta, Calyrex, and the Unova garrison already in place, Slumbering Town was as well protected as anywhere on the continent. He could travel lighter.
He gave Chelsea the final instructions: manage the city's affairs, post notices to reassure the townspeople, and announce that the King of Abundance and his companions would be permanently based in Slumbering Town to ensure its safety and prosperity. Then he packed quickly, went out to Kyurem, and climbed onto its back.
He raised a hand to the people below. Kyurem spread its wings, the downwash sweeping fallen leaves across the square, and carried them up and away toward Kalos.
Clouds passed on either side as they flew. The wind pressed against Lucien's robes, and he looked down at the mountains and the wide land receding beneath them, his mind moving through what had been accomplished and what still remained.
Kanto had been unified. Kalos was stabilizing. In Galar, Zacian, Zamazenta, and Calyrex were assembled, and the confrontation with Eternatus was within reach. Only Melmetal was missing.
Once Eternatus had been addressed, the path forward for Galar would open properly: Calyrex restored to its rightful place as the true king of the region, a Pokémon League established to handle daily governance alongside it, and the Royal Family's grip on the narrative of Galar's history quietly, permanently revised.
And if Hoopa could be brought into the arrangement, its rings would make travel between all the regions far more practical going forward.
Half a day at Kyurem's speed brought them to the Kalos Region.
The difference from the last visit was striking. The smoke of war was gone entirely. Below, as Lucien scanned the countryside, he saw farmers working alongside Sandslash and Oddish in the fields, children in the villages playing with their Pokémon, the easy, unhurried movement of people who were no longer bracing for the next bad thing to happen.
The oppressive weight that had hung over Kalos during the war, the hostility between nobility and commoner, the grinding cruelty of the slave system, had noticeably lifted.
AZ was genuinely trying to change his country.
Kyurem landed in front of the Royal Palace. A Kalos Knight on guard recognized Lucien before he had dismounted.
"Your Majesty Lucien! Lord AZ is in council at present. I will go and inform him at once."
"No need. I'll find my way." Lucien smiled, thanked him, and walked with Kyurem toward the palace.
He had barely passed through the main gate when AZ appeared, having clearly received word through the palace's internal network. Floette drifted beside him. AZ's face, when he saw Lucien, showed something that had been rare in it during their first meeting: uncomplicated warmth.
"Lord Lucien. This is unexpected. Is everything well in Unova?"
"Unova is fine. I've come to Kalos looking for a particular Pokémon. I need its help with something urgent." Lucien fell into step beside AZ as they moved toward the council hall. Once they were seated, he laid out the full plan: Eternatus, Melmetal, the Hero's Sword and Shield, the assembled group waiting in Slumbering Town, and Hoopa as the remaining piece.
AZ listened carefully. Then his expression shifted to something apologetic.
"I'm sorry. I have never heard that name before."
"That's all right. I have another way to find it." Lucien shook his head. He was not particularly worried. Zygarde was the answer to that problem.
AZ smiled. "Because of everything you have done, Kalos is finding its footing again. Truly."
Lucien smiled back.
He was in no immediate hurry to begin the search. He spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the city with AZ instead, taking in what had changed.
"The Pokémon League construction is underway," AZ said as they walked. "Gyms, Pokémon Centers, Pokémon Schools. There have been obstacles, but the foundation is holding." He glanced at Lucien, and the gratitude in his expression ran deep. "If not for you, I would have made an irreversible mistake. I am sorry for what almost happened, Lord Lucien."
"That isn't something you need to say to me," Lucien said. He shook his head and looked at the newly constructed building they were passing.
The city had been rebuilt since the war, and what had replaced the damage was something genuinely new. On the streets, people and Pokémon moved through their days wearing expressions that had warmth in them rather than fear.
AZ walked beside Lucien and watched it all with the quiet attention of someone who understood exactly how close none of this had come to existing.
If Lucien had not intervened that day, hundreds of thousands of people and Pokémon in this city would have been erased by the Ultimate Weapon's light. AZ carried that knowledge with him everywhere.
"You understand what's at stake now," Lucien said. "Treat the people and Pokémon of this land well. That's all I ask."
"I understand." AZ closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, the resolution in them was simple and absolute. Whatever years remained to him, they would be given to this.
The next morning, Lucien left the royal city and set out across the Kalos countryside.
In a dense, living stretch of forest, he found a Zygarde cell resting in a patch of undergrowth. He directed his intentions toward it, and the cell led him, through a winding, unhurried route, to one of Zygarde's two cores.
The core was small. Lucien looked at it for a moment.
Is this the one that will one day follow Bonnie?
He had no way to know. But the thought came anyway.
The core stared at him in return. Then a green light pulsed from within it, and from every direction, streams of green light converged and merged with the core, the shape building and resolving until a black and green canine form stood before him, hexagonal eyes glowing white with quiet intensity. Zygarde's ten percent form.
"We meet again, Zygarde," Lucien said, with a genuine smile.
Zygarde was silent.
Its feelings toward this human were genuinely complicated. Months earlier, one of its cores had traveled on a ship to a distant continent and witnessed everything this person had built there: people and Pokémon living as companions rather than master and tool, ordinary life made fundamentally better by the simple act of treating Pokémon as beings worth caring about.
And now, back here in Kalos, the king of that distant land had come and spoken with AZ, and AZ had changed. The country was changing. Because of this human.
Zygarde regarded him for a long moment, and then asked, through telepathy:
What is your name?
Lucien blinked, mildly surprised. "Lucien."
Lucien. Zygarde repeated it internally, quietly, setting it somewhere it would stay. You came to find me. What do you need?
"A favor," Lucien said, his expression becoming more serious. "Another region is facing a crisis, and I need to locate a Pokémon called Hoopa. I know it's somewhere in the Kalos Region, but I don't know where."
Hoopa. A pause. Then Zygarde turned, and its head pointed toward the depths of the forest. I have seen a Pokémon in a town not far from here. It may be what you are looking for. Come. I will guide you.
Consider it a small return for everything, Zygarde thought to itself.
"Thank you," Lucien said, genuinely surprised at how straightforwardly that had gone.
Zygarde's ten percent form was fast, and Lucien quickly found he couldn't keep pace on foot. He climbed onto Kyurem instead, and they traveled behind Zygarde through the Kalos landscape,
Kyurem's faint chill moving alongside them without disturbing the forest around them. The terrain flowed past: dense canopy giving way to open hills, rivers catching the afternoon light, towns appearing and receding in the distance.
A full day and night of travel later, they came to a stop at a small town that was, against expectations, remarkably busy for its size.
Zygarde stilled, its gaze fixed ahead.
We have arrived.
"Thank you. Truly." Lucien climbed down from Kyurem. Zygarde received the thanks in silence, which was its way.
Lucien was about to move toward the town when a thought stopped him. He turned back.
"Zygarde. One more thing, while I have the chance to ask."
Zygarde looked at him. What is it?
Lucien chose his words carefully. "Is there a way to obtain something close to eternal life? Could Xerneas help with something like that?"
Zygarde went still. After a moment, it asked: Why do you want this?
Lucien answered without hesitation, and more honestly than he might have expected himself to. "Because I want to stay beside my Pokémon. Human life is short. If I were to die before them, they would grieve for centuries. Dragonite, Serperior, Volcarona, I don't want that for them."
He hadn't said anything about the larger project, the world he was building, the vision of humans and Pokémon living together across every region. What came out instead was the smaller, more personal truth underneath all of it.
Zygarde was quiet for a long time. Then it asked: If you received that kind of life, what would you do with it?
Lucien thought about it honestly.
"I would keep building the world I've been working toward. When humans and Pokémon have truly found their way to living together, when that doesn't need me to hold it up anymore, I would step back.
Give the throne to someone better suited for it. And then I would go somewhere quiet with Dragonite and the others and simply live alongside them for as long as there was time to live."
He scratched the back of his head slightly. "That's roughly it. Though I'm aware it's a large thing to ask. I was just asking while I had the opportunity." He gave Zygarde a small nod. "I'll let you go. I have the main business to attend to."
He remounted Kyurem and rode toward the town.
Zygarde, in its canine form, stood at the tree line for a long time, watching the figure recede until it had disappeared entirely. Then, slowly, it turned and left.
In the Eternal Forest.
Warm sunlight came through the canopy in long, shifting beams and fell across a meadow full of flowers in bloom. Xerneas moved through them with its characteristic unhurried grace, its head bowed, its antlers catching the light in faint pulses of color.
Then it raised its head.
It looked in a particular direction with the attentiveness of something that had just become aware of something unexpected.
"My friend," Xerneas said, its voice gentle and slightly surprised, the words directed at someone only it could perceive. "What brings you to my part of the world today?"
...
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