Don't worry, the visitors won't be main characters. They're just here for a joke or two in future chapters.
Calem was hunting Mega Stones in Lumiose City only a few days later. His Key Stone had reacted to something, but he hadn't seen what it was before its timer had run out. So, when his Holo Caster went off, signaling a call, he thought it was his Mega Ring at first.
His second thought was that it was somebody from Team Flare, out for revenge for the time he and Serena had smashed through their base and possibly talked their boss into committing suicide, or at least destroyed the weapon.
But when he answered, hoping he didn't sound too nervous to the person on the other end, all he got was a strange symbol of a face and a man's voice.
"You are Calem Xavier, son of the famous Rhyhorn racer?"
"Who's asking?" Calem was sure that wasn't a confirmation. Well, pretty sure.
"I would like to tell you, but we cannot discuss it here. Come to the Looker Bureau in Lumiose City and you shall learn everything."
"Come to where?"
"You will find it near Rouge Plaza." There was a pause. "I can't say any more here. I hope to see you soon."
And the man switched off.
Calem still suspected that this was some form of ambush, but he had nothing to fear from an ambush. He had his Pokémon team to deal with threats like that – he could count only two important losses, neither of which he had used Yveltal for. If this man was trying to hurt him, all he had to do was show him the bird.
So, off to Rouge Plaza he went, this time having a vague idea of where he needed to go despite never having heard the words "Looker" and "Bureau" in a sentence like that.
He'd later come to the conclusion that until that day, he'd never heard the word "Bureau" more than five times in his entire life.
As it turned out, nobody knew where the Looker Bureau was. Even the helpful cab driver, the same man who had taken them to Lumiose Station when they couldn't find their own way, could only get him to Rouge Plaza before telling the kid that he was on his own. It took Calem sticking his head into every building in every alley before he saw something that told him he was in the right place.
Serena was already sitting in a chair, straight and still like an ancient princess (had she been in contact with AZ lately?) and watching a man in a brown trench coat stare at the floor and talk to himself.
"Uh," Calem said, "were you the one who called me?"
The man jumped right to attention, rushing at Calem and putting him in a headlock.
"Who are you, and who are you working for?"
Yeah, this was an ambush. "Calem Xavier," the soon-to-be Champion choked out, "and I work for myself! And occasionally Professor Sycamore."
The man immediately dropped him. "I apologize," he said as Calem fought off the shock that came from suddenly being unable to breathe more than the minimum requirement for speaking. "I wasn't sure if my call had reached the right person."
"I told him you might have slept through it," Serena admitted, looking slightly guilty.
"But," the man continued, "you were the ones who saved Kalos from Lysandre."
"Yeah, we were." Calem still wasn't happy about the headlock, but the guy didn't seem to be trying to take Yveltal from him.
"I only need 30 seconds of your time," the man continued. "30 minutes, maybe. I have investigated you both, and have discovered that Calem is the new Champion of the Kalos region."
"Not yet," Calem said, more than a little freaked out that this guy had information that he and Diantha planned to never release to the public at all. "The current Champion is waiting for me to get my Tyrunt to evolve, and that's a lot harder to accomplish when I'm not chasing down Team Flare or earning badges."
"But Diantha plans on handing you her title eventually," the man pointed out, and Calem went quiet again. He'd never mentioned the current Champion's identity, but this guy didn't look like he'd been to the Hall of Fame…
"You are here today because I had a suspicion that trouble would return to Lumiose City. It is a beautiful city, known all over the world…but when so many people gather, trouble often follows."
"What kind of trouble?" Serena asked.
"Troublesome trouble," the man explained. "Now, as the heroes of Kalos, you two are the only hope for a detective like me to uncover this trouble before it can trouble others. With my observation skills and your strength, we can bring peace to Lumiose City. Will you join me and fight crime?"
Calem's answer, of course, was "Been there, done that." But Serena gave her answer first, before he could even open his mouth.
"Of course I will, Looker," she promised. "It's an adventure, after all."
So, of course, Calem had to change his own answer to match. "It's a Champion's duty," he said, sort of reluctantly. "Diantha tried and failed to get involved with Team Flare. If I learn proper detective skills and don't get blinded by friendships and juggling multiple jobs, I might be able to do something."
"Excellent!" Looker handed them some papers. "Now, in order to train your detective skills, I must send you to detective school! Find these tickets and return to me!"
It didn't take long for them to wonder just what they had agreed to.
"It's just a scavenger hunt, right?" Serena asked as they walked through the Lumiose art museum, searching for one of the Looker Tickets that the detective had scattered around town. "How would a scavenger hunt teach us how to be detectives?"
"Maybe it's supposed to train us to be observant," Calem suggested. "You know, how you can spot an ad for a shoe sale in the newspaper when your dad's the one reading it."
"You know that fashion is an important part of my life," Serena reminded him, a little defensive. "I'm going to work with Valerie someday, I need all the experience I can get."
And, yes, that was her usual excuse for visiting every boutique in Kalos. The excuse used to be that she had modeling experience, but ever since she'd chosen the designer path, she'd decided to practice her drawing skills by planning her outfits on paper instead of in front of a mirror. And, of course, the more shopping (and selling of old stuff) she did, the more practice she'd get.
She'd also done it for Calem, more than once. He admitted to himself that having someone to make him look like a Champion would be awesome. Diantha had that winged jacket, after all, maybe Serena could make him a cape. The Kanto/Johto Champion had a cape, right? And one of the Hoenn guys?
Calem was still thinking about capes when Serena let out a triumphant screech that caused him to jump and everyone else in the museum to shush her. She didn't pay attention to any of them, and instead pulled out a slip of paper.
"I found it," she said when Calem got close enough to hear the whisper. Then she frowned at the writing. "It's either the Looker Ticket or a Pokemart receipt."
"It's both," Calem observed, taking it from her and flipping it over two or three times. "He made a 'ticket' on the back of a Pokemart receipt."
The note on the ticket explained that he had run out of paper and used the Pokemart receipt instead. He also added a challenge for them to see what he could be planning to do with what he bought (nothing but fifteen Repels and a pair of Espurr-sized earmuffs) but admitted that it might be intermediate detective work.
Calem checked the museum off the list. "Where to next?" he asked.
"The medicine shop," Serena decided at once. "It's the last one, and I wanted to check it out anyway."
"Is one of your Pokémon sick?"
"No. But Sylveon might be."
"She's not," Calem insisted. "The bucket thing was a freak accident."
"Of course it was," Serena said, in her placating voice, before turning to leave the museum, leaving Calem behind.
There was nothing interesting in the herbal medicine shop, except for the final Looker Ticket. Nearby, however, they found a place that sold evolution stones, and both of them were distracted from their search as they planned the extras for Calem's Champion team. They figured that Looker would simply fire them if he disapproved.
Of course, they were stopped in their tracks when they saw four people, each with a hairstyle more ridiculous than the last.
The brown-haired boy might have had normal hair, if he hadn't packed it all into a visor so that it stuck straight up off his head like the branches of a palm tree. The only girl of the group had enormous donuts trailing off into pigtails, Sailor Moon style. The other teenage boy had huge, spiky hair that made him look like a Qwilfish.
But their chaperone, a tall man with glasses and a lab coat who looked like he really wanted to go home, won the contest without a doubt. Most of it was short, blond, and smoothed back, but there was an enormous swoosh of blue that circled his head.
Serena must have made a noise, because all four of them turned to look at the same moment. The girl stepped closer to Qwilfish-boy, almost like it was subconscious.
Calem was the first to speak. "Are you new here?" He was sure he would have recognized those hairstyles if he'd seen them before.
"Visitors," Palm Tree said, with the accent of a kid who grew up in Unova. "We're just looking to see if they were selling any Mega Stones for the Pokémon we already have before heading over to the Tower of Mastery."
"If we can trust this guy to not lead us into a trap," Qwilfish-boy added, giving his chaperone a pointed glare.
"Hugh!" the girl snapped, but the man stopped her.
"Let him have his opinion," he said. "It's not undeserved."
Calem pretended that he understood. "I was just wondering about your hair," he explained, "but I guess that can wait. How long are you all in town for?"
The girl shrugged. "For as long as the professors need us, I guess."
Serena looked up at the man, curious. "You're a professor? I thought the professors of Unova were a father-daughter team. You look too young to have a daughter old enough to be a professor." She squinted. "Unless she's a TV genius and got the job when she was, like, ten."
"I'm an independent researcher," he corrected her. "Partnered with Aurea Juniper and forced to babysit her friends in case they encounter a language barrier."
"We're your friends, dude," Palm Tree reminded him, a point the man silently acknowledged.
"I'm not," Hugh added.
"Those who matter are," the researcher stated, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather, and looked nothing short of entertained as Hugh immediately threatened to 'unleash his rage' and 'hope for a Mega Samurott to Mega Razor Shell that stupid hair.'
The girl held Hugh back, but shot the man an annoyed glance of her own. "Do you think it's funny to do that in public?"
The man gestured toward Calem, who had broken down into silent laughter at the reaction to the mean remark. "He seems to think so."
"Colress! You promised Professor Juniper you wouldn't be such a huge…"
"Wait a minute," Serena said, cutting off whatever Donut Head was about to say. She pointed at the man. "You're Colress?"
He was instantly suspicious. "Why?"
"The same Colress who did experiments on the stones on Route 10?" Colress didn't answer that, which was all the confirmation she needed. "What did you do?"
"Things," Colress said quickly, and turned to his friends and their companion. "Rosa, Nate…other one. Pick a stone, we leave for Shalour City tomorrow."
"We stay," Rosa insisted. "I have the dragon. I decide when we fly it."
"Then we stay at Professor Sycamore's lab and help with his research. Though until you get Key Stones, we won't really have a purpose here."
"I'll battle one of you when you get the hang of Mega Evolution," Calem promised. "Send you home with more experience."
The thought of a battle made Rosa shrink back. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Do you do Musicals?" Calem asked.
"She's in the Unova region Hall of Fame," Hugh explained for her. "She doesn't want to annihilate a guy she just met."
"She won't," Calem promised. "I'm in the Kalos Hall of Fame, we'll be on equal standing."
"Cool." Rosa turned back to the stones, but Nate stopped her from looking.
"Champion vs. Champion battle," he said, almost begging. "For the movie?"
Rosa looked between Nate and Calem, then sighed. "Well, I guess it won't kill me. Or him. Why not?"
"Awesome." Calem started to give her his Holo Caster information, but when Rosa just stared at him in confusion, he stopped mid-sentence. "Or I could meet you guys at Sycamore's lab when I'm finished with my mission."
"Sycamore's lab would be great." Rosa sounded relieved. Then she turned to her travel partners. "Come on, guys. I guess they don't sell Mega Stones here."
Then she herded her friends out the door like a Stoutland in charge of a group of Tauros.
Once they were safely gone, Serena looked at Calem suspiciously. "You think they're the trouble that Looker was talking about?"
"Without a doubt," Calem answered immediately. Then he held out the three Looker Tickets he had found. "You've got two, I've got three. We finished the scavenger hunt. Let's go report it to headquarters."
Looker didn't mind that they took a detour. Instead, he just counted the tickets and told them that they had passed his class and were now full detectives.
"Although I hope you can save challenging tourists to battle for when you're off the clock," he said, giving Calem a pointed look.
Calem smiled nervously. "Fair enough."
"In his defense, she decided to wait until they were done with their research," Serena cut in. "And new people showing up in Lumiose City right after you mentioned that you were sensing trouble is kind of suspicious."
"Aurea Juniper is mostly trustworthy," Looker pointed out. "Her Pokedex carriers have saved Unova twice. This more than likely does not concern them." When Calem looked disappointed, he decided to give the kid a break. "But I will take a note, in case you are right."
They allowed that. "So what do you think is going on?" Calem asked.
"I am still on the lookout for the full explanation myself," Looker explained. "We will continue our search for clues together. You have my permission to examine my notes, and we will begin our partnership once you have finished."
Calem sat down at Looker's desk, Serena hovering over his shoulder.
"And you have 30 seconds," Looker added.
The only other sound was the quick ruffling of paper as two teenagers sped through the notes like their lives depended on it.