"Human speech"
"Telepathy/aura"
Thinking
"Pokemon speech"
Pokemon move
Chapter 3: Returning to the Capital!
And Serena is travelling with us?! Oh, come on...
(Third person POV)
'Just agree, we help her a bit, then we'll go separate ways. Simple.'
If anything in life was ever that simple... Chrome grumbled inside his pokeball. As Shade had promised, they had helped chespin evolve into a quilladin, trained him abit, he defeated Viola, and Serena got the bug badge. But...
"Could I travel with you?" she had asked with the same big sparkling eyes as before. Shade mentally apologized to Chrome for being unable to reject her, once again. "Sure..."
"As long as she doesn't discover the truth about us, I guess it's fine... but we really have to find an excuse to go separate ways. The longer she remains, the more we risk of being found out!"
Later
The officer standing at the gates of Santalune had no qualms of letting the duo of trainers pass, seeing as both of them had a badge. It was most likely an unappreciated job, to bar the way for travelers, but in the end, it was for their safety.
"What kind of pokemon do you intend to catch?" Serena asked 'Chrome'.
"None," he answered, "I'm not a trainer, I just beat gyms for the sake of badges. They will allow me more freedom when travelling."
"But won't it be difficult to beat the strongest gyms with only Shade?" Serena asked, "Each badge you have will make the next one harder, no one has ever sweeped the later gyms before!"
'Chrome' grinned at her words. "Then I'll just have to be the first."
"And you call ME overconfident... especially since you aren't doing jack..."
"Because you won't give me the chance!" Shade retorted, before thinking about what Chrome said. "...Who's Jack?"
"Nevermind..."
"I challenge you to a battle!"
Shade was abruptly brought out of his argument with Chrome as a kid pointed at him. Shade merely looked at him.
"Tell Serena to take care of this. Her quilladin could make do with the training." Chrome said.
"Won't that make me look bad? To tell a girl to fight in my place?" Shade wondered.
"It'd be a waste of time and effort on our part to fight him, as it's highly unlikely that his pokemon is any stronger than the gym leader's, because if they were, he wouldn't be here."
"Beating up rookies for the sake of his self-esteem by any chance?"
"Hey, you bringing out your pokemon today?!" The kid was obviously not patient.
"Serena, could you... you know..."
"Sure." She said with a smile as she brought out quilladin's pokeball.
Shade didn't expect her to agree so readily, but Chrome, on the other hand, mentally nodded. "She's aware that every trainer she battles is a chance to grow stronger, unlike me, who would need a far greater opponent."
"That sounded wise until the second part, then it turned outright arrogant."
"I am merely stating facts."
"Catch it with Vine Whip and slam it into the ground to finish this!"
Despite being at a type disadvantage, Serena's quilladin was stronger, thanks to both it's evolution and training, and thus easily defeated the kid's pidgey. As it seemed, quilladin had no issues with his new body, despite evolving recently. And so, this continued the whole way to Lumiose, with Serena fighting any trainer on the way. 'Chrome' did get an occasional look, as if they were disappointed in him for having Serena fight in his place.
"Maybe I should've battled some of them..." Shade said to his brother, somewhat dejected at the glares he was given.
"Just think that you let her battle for her sake: so that she could become a better trainer, and her pokemon could get stronger. You did the right thing."
"Say that to the trainers we refused..."
"Here we are! Lumiose City!" Serena exclaimed happily.
The duo's first stop was the pokemon center, before they headed to Sycamore's lab. Said professor greeted them with a joyful expression.
"Ah, Serena, good to see you're finally- Oh? Chrome, you're back already?"
"You've met Chrome before, professor?" Serena asked.
"Indeed I have! Why, he registered here as a pokemon trainer earlier today."
Serena looked at 'Chrome'. "I thought you said you weren't a trainer."
'Chrome' chuckled. "Well... officially, I am a trainer, but I have no intention of catching pokemon or challenging the League. As I said, I only beat gyms as badges give me the freedom to travel. Without them, I'd be limited to Armored Transports, and they only ever stops at cities, and 'exploring' cities aren't the same as forests and caves."
"I see... that's a shame, don't you think?" Serena said.
"Why is that?"
"Someone with your ability could easily give the champion a run for his money. Wouldn't it be a great feeling? To know you're the strongest trainer in the region?"
"Wishful thinking." Chrome thought to Shade, who voiced it to Serena. "The champion isn't like the gym leader who had a weak team due to us having no badges, the champion will bring his a-game, whom he's trained for years before he became champion, and likely continued to train since. As much as I'd like to see how well 'Shade' can perform against him, it would most likely be a one-sided beating."
"I... I see..." Serena said weakly.
Sycamore clapped his hands to grab the duo's attention. "Now now, that's enough of that." He then brought out a container which held three pokeballs. "Serena, I'd like you to have one of the three pokemon here. As you know, my research is about mega evolution, and these three- charmander, bulbasaur and squirtle- can do just that, once they reach their 'final' stage."
"Mega evolution?" 'Chrome' asked.
"Hmm? Ah, I never told you about it when you were here last time, did I?" 'Chrome' shook his head. "Mega evolution is when a pokemon evolves further than was originally believed to be possible. Some pokemon, for instance, never evolve, while other evolve once or twice. Mega evolution, however, is a temporary transformation rather than an evolution, granting said pokemon a power boost. My research is about finding out the secrets of mega evolution. Why the stones are needed, how pokemon react to it, and how different trainers have different effects on the evolution."
"Can zoroark mega evolve?" 'Chrome' asked, nearly jumping in excitement.
"To my knowledge, no. But it's fully possible that it can, just that the necessary mega stone hasn't been discovered yet. After all, I have plenty of potential mega stones, which are still undetermined what pokemon they work with. Some time ago, for example, a few stones were discovered in Hoenn, which, thanks to my help, turned out to be Pidgeotite, Galadite and Metagrossite, among others. But enough of that." Sycamore said as he turned to Serena. "Have you decided which one you want?"
"I choose..."
Fact about Chrome's Journey: I considered having Sycamore speak french occasionally, like he does in the game, but... I have only the utmost basic knowledge of simple words and numbers when it comes to french, and I don't trust online translators... Didn't want to butcher the language.
