The next morning, Lucas woke up to his alarm, this time on time. He jumped out of bed, gathered all his things, and headed out the door immediately. The hallway was completely empty, although it didn’t feel that way. He made his way over to the escalator leading upstairs but felt a strange spike in his heart and mind. He held his head, feeling one of the same headaches he’d been having every time he woke up from those inexplicably weird dreams begin biting down on his head.

  “Not again…” he said, holding his head as it pulsed. But it was in an accidental glance to his side that he noticed a familiar face. He felt his hairs standing on end as he stared at it for what felt like hours. Leaning against the wall, its unflinching steel gaze emanating a mystic blue air, was a Lucario. It looked to be the same one from yesterday, but before Lucas could even question what was going on—

  “There’s something strange about you…” a voice said.

  Had he always been there? Maybe Lucas really was losing it, but he definitely hadn’t noticed anyone before. It was a man… no, a gentleman more like it. Quiet, with a striking presence and in a exquisitely dapper navy suit and sleek hat.

  “Who… are you? What are you doing to me? What’s going on with your eyes…?” Lucas asked, feeling something—someone else in his head as he stared at the man’s phantasmal blue eyes.

  The man placed a hand on his chin, glancing at his partner, who hadn’t for a second let his piercing blue gaze off the young boy. He couldn’t. Everything about this boy, everything about his aura, was wrong.

  “I feel it too, Azure… this child shouldn’t be here. What have you done?”

  Lucas couldn’t shake it off. It felt as if an entire ocean was being poured into his brain—worse, something unreal was grabbing hold of his mind, gazing at its contents without his say.

  “Stop it… you can’t do that. I don’t know who you are…”

  “I am Riley Alex Lee… and you’ve done something horrible.”

  “What the heck are you talking about…? I just met you…” the boy said.

  “No. I cannot explain it, but I am certain we've met before... somehow. Your aura is completely unnatural; it’s almost like you shouldn’t be alive at all. Like a ghost. I’ve never felt anything like this before… worst of all, your thoughts are unintelligible. Rather, something is stopping me from understanding...” His voice was a breath of frozen focus.

  “I don’t even know what that means… just stop whatever you’re doing,” Lucas said.

  It was then that the aura clouding both Riley’s and the Lucario’s eyes dissipated, and Lucas regained control of his own… conscience? No, it felt way deeper than that—like they’d seen everything. But as all the disorientation became undone, new confusion floated to the surface of his stirring thoughts.

  “Did you say Azure?” Lucas asked.

  The man glanced at the Lucario before answering.

  “Indeed. That is the name of my partner, Azure. Is there something wrong?”

  Lucas reached for his scarf but stopped himself halfway as he shot a gaze directly into the man’s eyes.

  “Yeah… there is something wrong. Who told you that you could do that? I didn’t say you could do whatever that was… what was that?”

  “Aura reading?” Riley fixed his sharp blue cap, an amused smile on his face. “Nobody told me. I learned of my innate inclination towards it when I was quite young, younger than you are now. More importantly… have you been having any strange dreams as of late? Visions or flashes?”

  Lucas’s face creased, and he hesitated to answer.

  “You didn't answer my question... and how do you know that?”

  “I don’t.” Riley said. “As I said, I couldn’t even read your thoughts at all. Well, reading is rather inaccurate, but I will use it for your ease of understanding. As I said before… your aura is abnormal. You see, while the auras of most people and Pokémon flare around their hearts, the core of their being, yours does not. It trails off like spilt liquid in another direction… this is usually the case for someone who is experiencing a sort of dissonance within themselves, which is nothing unusual for someone with, say, schizophrenia or a sort of personality disorder. People like that usually report having strange dreams and nightmares. But you… it isn’t just that your aura is incongruent with your core or that it’s straying from its origin—it’s that I sense a trace of a completely foreign aura inside you on top of that—an aura that I can’t even begin to fathom.”

  He might as well have been speaking in Unown to Lucas. What on Earth was he on about? He’d read about people who could tap into auras and all that, but Barry said that stuff was for creepy witchcraft weirdos and those zodiac sign people, especially girls; and soon after that, his interest in it waned—but that didn’t matter right now. Who the hell did this Riley guy think he was, trying to dig into his thoughts? With no remorse too! Plus, he was letting precious time go to waste just standing there!

  “Sorry, I have things to do, and I don’t get a whole lot of what you’re saying, so I’m gonna go—”

  “I don’t think you understand…” Riley said in a voice laced with a daunting undertone. Lucas felt his nerves tingle, and before he even registered anything, he snapped his head backward, frightened by the sight of the Lucario that was just in front of him appearing out of blurry nothingness. “Your presence exudes an unspeakable danger—I don’t know what you’ve been in contact with as of late, but I believe you’ve been imprinted with something unimaginably horrific.” Riley gazed at the boy, noticing something else, another flare of aura leaking around him… right behind him.

  “What the hell was that? What’d your Lucario just do? I didn’t even see it…” Lucas said in a breath of sheer shock. He’d never seen anything like that—literally—he couldn’t even see it move! It was like a still picture that suddenly popped out and back into reality! What sort of move was that? The powerful kind, he bet!

  “Listen, I understand that this might be quite spontaneous, and for that, I apologize; but would you mind emptying your bag for me?” Riley’s gaze had hardened, going from still and chilling water to cold, hard steel like an Empoleon. It was with those eyes that he noticed how the boy’s demeanour seemed completely indifferent to what he’d said, all courtesy to Azure’s show of immense speed. He seemed completely captured by it, so much so that it almost frightened him to look into the boy’s crazed grey eyes. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Huh? My bag? No way, why would you need to do that—wait, what move was that? It looked super… powerful,” Lucas asked, unable to unsee what he’d seen, or hadn’t seen, rather.

  Riley knew what to do.

  “I’ll tell you exactly what Azure did if you allow me to see what’s in your bag. A rather fantastic idea, I believe.”

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  Lucas didn’t hesitate to take the offer. What are you, dumb? Who wouldn’t? The guy was basically giving it to him for free! Plus, it’s not like there was anything really important in there… not anything too fragile.

  Or so he thought.

  A thought that would melt away into a bubbling stew of surprise and confusion when Riley pulled out a parcel he knew wasn’t in his bag. At least, that was what he told himself.

  “This…” Riley held the little parcel up in his hand, a distressed look on his face. “What… what is this?”

  “I don’t know, I got it from a strange guy in a suit two days ago at the Poké Mart—”

  “A strange guy? Azure, you feel this too, right?”

  The Lucario nodded its head in silence, eyes pulsing bright blue once again. Something about that parcel reeked with an otherworldly aura. Overwhelming. Far too potent, so much so that he felt dazed just being around it.

  “What’s going on with him?” Lucas asked, watching the Lucario shake its head as if it was concussed.

  “Azure’s rather sensitive to aura, more so than regular Lucario. He’s been like that since he hatched. More importantly… what’s in this—”

  “Don’t open it!” Lucas burst, reaching out for the packet in a fit of panic. “Please, don’t open it—don’t open it! Do not open it!” The inside of his head pumped his body full of adrenaline. He had no idea what had come over him or how the hell the parcel had even appeared in his backpack when it was completely absent from it when he’d left home—but that didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was not opening the parcel. It was for later, the guy said, which meant no one under any circumstance was supposed to open it! No matter what!

  Riley handed Lucas all his stuff back, taken aback by the sudden sense of… doom… in his voice. And as much as he wanted nothing more than to keep a close eye on this boy… something else was ordering him to steer clear from his path no matter what, and he was in no place to refuse. Not in any place at all.

  He was not in control. Something else… someone else was.

  He’d keep his distance, for now at least… until the time came. Until… he couldn’t stay out of it anymore. They both would. Azure agreed, nodding from a distance, having completely understood how he felt about the matter. It was best they stayed away lest they anger someone they ought not to for interfering.

  Riley straightened his cleanly cut blue blazer, his hand on his hat, thanking Lucas for his time before disappearing just as he’d appeared: in silence.

  Alone again, and pondering what on Earth had just happened, Lucas came to the realization…

  “Hey! You didn’t tell me what move you used!” he cried. Of course, it was all but too late, as to be expected from something that could move so fast his eyes couldn’t even blink in the time it took for it to move.

  Powerful.

  He imagined the sort of skill he would need to train one of his partners to pull something like that off. More than that, could you imagine how easy it would be to set the pace of a match with speed like that? Speed you couldn’t even comprehend… speed that was nothing short of extreme.

  He didn’t need that Riley man to tell him. No, he didn’t. He could just figure it out anyway. Of course, he conned him, but Lucas figured he’d get him back. Things always came back around in life.

  Always.

  But he was wasting time just sitting there. It was time to get to work. He got his act together and made his way up to the second floor. The nurse was behind the counter, absorbed by the news playing on one of the TVs planted into the walls. Something about increased criminal activity in Veilstone City. Apparently, more people were getting their Pokémon snatched from them; not only that, but there was even more violence and gang activity... and it all led to the same culprit.

  He made his way over to the table, holding the key card in his hand.

  “Goodness, that Galactic Gang…” the nurse uttered in a voice of sympathy. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your dear Pokémon stolen from you… I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t even want to imagine the pain…” Turning her head, she met eyes with the young boy whose face was still tagged with the plaster she’d given him the night before. “You’re looking rested up. How’s your wound?”

  “This? Oh, I’m fine. It wasn’t all that bad to begin with…” Lucas touched the covered wound with a cautious hand.

  The nurse nodded in what seemed like understanding, though it was clear to her that the wound on his face wasn’t the only thing that needed to be healed up after what she’d heard from his call yesterday. But that was none of her business. Hers was taking care of those who needed help, and she’d done that.

  “I’ll take that off your hands,” she said, doing just that as she… well, took the card from his hands (what’d you expect?). “I hope you’re not forgetting anything in your room, sweetie.”

  Lucas gave her a sort of grimace.

  “Of course not,” he said. Who did she think he was? An idiot?

  “Alright, dear. Just be sure,” she said. “And remember what mommy said: straight home. Ms. Johanna wanted to make sure you got the message. Be careful not to find yourself in trouble; it’s getting more and more dangerous out there day by day—”

  “I appreciate all the help, miss, but I think I can take care of myself now,” Lucas said, walking straight to the door and heading back out to the city, feeling a sense of bliss and relief as her voice was cut off by the door sliding shut behind him. Hearing all these women tell him what to do was starting to get seriously annoying. He didn’t need their roadside signs and directions, and neither did he want them.

  That was the last time he was getting a handout.

  Lucas marched with the hordes of commuting workers dressed in their “serious business” clothes. Women clip-clopping in heels and men moving with so much Purpose it made Lucas reflect on his own goals.

  It was dizzying. Seeing so many people in one place—it looked way calmer on TV whenever the news was on. But nothing about this city was calm.

  Not the capital of Sinnoh.

  Jubilife was a busy metropolis, with electric billboards popping with bright colours and cyclists striding by on the asphalt roads, which lacked the vehicular hoots and exhaust fumes you'd expect for a huge city. Of course, you'd only expect that if you were a foreigner and didn't know the strict regulations around cars and other gas-emitting vehicles.

  No, sir, the only thing filling the road were legions of pedestrians parading around on their ways into the towering, skyscraping office buildings armoured with lustrous glass panels from head to toe.

  “I thought there’d be more Pokémon here…” he said. So far, he’d only seen someone walking down the street with a cheerful, goofy-looking Bidoof bouncing about and, of course, the bunches of Burmy tangled in the trees, wrapped in leafy skins like blankets against the cold morning air.

  And it was cold, don’t get it twisted; even including the fact that all Sinnoh natives were specially engineered to withstand the frigid weather, it was still quite chilly.

  Meanwhile, Lucas was being reminded just how hungry he was as he wandered around, with the smell of sizzling meats invading his nose—

  “Grilled Karp! Nobody does it better—you! You're on your way to school, right? Bet you haven't even had breakfast; I can tell by your walk. Buy some Grilled Karp!” said a man standing by a little wheeled stall with a cool red umbrella and vibrant starry-eyed Magikarp logo on it.

  “I don't have a lot of money, sorry,” Lucas said, putting up his hands as if to defendhimself from the backlash of what he'd said.

  “Then get some and get some! (。?`з?)? Grilled Karp! New barbecue Sitrus glaze, start your day in a grade-A way! You! Lady! Nice heels, ever tried some Grilled Karp? Only the freshest fish caught at Route 208! ”

  The man's voice was drowned out as Lucas continued his march downtown, catching an entire swarm of people emerging from a tunnel underground with a sign written JCM on it.

  Jubilife City Metro. The biggest station in the region, and just like the capital: the most developed. People from all over the place travelled to the capital for work using the metro. There were so many people filtering in and out of that area, but the one person who really caught his attention was a walking red flag of sorts. In a good way… and not really walking, standing. Dressed in her trademark red trenchcoat, who else but—

  “Dawn!”