Oops, sorry for the delay; I got a bit distracted with unimportant stuff.
In the plains of Route 10, Pollux hopped about, jumping excitedly from one spot to the next in a path that saw a great number of twists and turns; the repetitive stone-laden scenery only served to disorient Nate as he followed closely, as he had been instructed to by the Sylveon. Fortunately the boy remained able to keep up, until Pollux came to an abrupt stop, standing before a huge, flat rock that resembled a charcoal-colored tree stump. Nate couldn't see exactly what it was from afar, but something appeared to rest on the flat stone surface, a small glassy droplet that glinted with the reflection of the setting sun.
"There it is," Pollux explained. "On that flat rock is what my master had left for you."
Nate was quite curious about this unexpected gift; he could feel the light beating of his heart as he advanced towards the stump-like rock with hurried steps. Closer and closer, the object residing atop the rock came into view, until it was within his arm's reach. The strange item was flawlessly spherical and fit comfortably in the boy's palm, and the loop of thread attached to it was silky, yet sturdy. The boy was easily able to fit his head through the string, wearing the small orb like a pendant.
"What do you think?" Pollux asked, sporting its signature, oft-present smile.
"It's… good, I guess," Nate answered with slight uncertainty; he wasn't normally one to wear jewelry, but he figured it rude to turn down a gift from Pollux's master… whom the boy had still not met in person yet. Someone who could train a Pokémon as arcane as Pollux would certainly be an interesting individual; he had no doubt about that.
"I'm glad you like it!" Pollux nodded happily. "I'm not sure where my master found it, but I was assured that it would be a nice token of gratitude."
Nate gazed into the jewel-like stone, which was mostly translucent but for its core; the center appeared as a cloud that had been contained within the orb, like a captured Pokémon in its ball.
"I wish I could thank him myself," Nate suggested. "Will I meet him soon?"
Pollux didn't make eye contact while answering. "I can't say. Maybe my master will appear before you someday… maybe not."
The boy was not entirely disappointed of the news, though he chose to speak no more of it. "Oh, well… let's go to Lumiose City now!" And at those words, Nate brought Noivern out, and the boy took flight, disappearing once again into the vast Kalos skies.
%%%
Luckily for Nate, his Noivern had not been too majorly affected by their brief episode with Siebold and his squad, flying without a single care on its mind. The boy was very grateful that he had managed to make the initially-belligerent Pokémon much more benign, as he guessed that the blond man and his subordinates would have most likely shown considerably less mercy, had they seen Noivern in its more violent state.
Evening was on its way by the time they had come to a stop, landing by the familiar sight of Professor Sycamore's laboratory gates. Shortly after Noivern was recalled into its Poké Ball, Nate began to hear a series of footsteps coming towards his direction, and he turned to see the familiar faces of the professor's assistants, Sina and Dexio.
"Hey, guys," Nate waved to his two new friends. "What are you doing out here?"
"We could ask you the same thing," replied Dexio, as he used one hand to brush aside the blond hair covering his face.
"Weren't you looking for the ship guy in Geosenge Town?" Sina asked. Nate shook his head, and then went on to explain how he had found out that the seafaring man of Virbank City had made a surprising appearance on the screen of one friendly woman's TV.
"Oh, that was him in that commercial? I saw it too not too long ago!" said the girl. "Not a very good actor, is he?"
"I'd like to see you do any better," Dexio retorted haughtily, igniting yet another argument between the two of them.
"Hey, when did this become about me?"
"When I said so, that's when."
"Hmph, in that case, maybe someday you will get to see me do better, and you'll be eating those words!"
"Yeah, I doubt that. Also it's impossible to eat words."
Pollux sighed. "There they go again…"
Nate continued to observe the battle of words. It was a battle with no clear winner or loser, only tumultuous and somewhat disorganized scuffling, but Nate still enjoyed watching the scene unfurl all the same. In the span of but a few minutes, the initial squabble had strayed greatly from its original subject, and only then did Sina and Dexio take heed of Nate eyeing the two assistants with curiosity.
"Ha ha ha, sorry about that," Sina chuckled weakly. "It's getting late, though. You should come with us to the lab. The city can get pretty dangerous if you're out on your own, don't you know?"
"But I'm not alone," Nate explained. "I have Pollux and Noivern with me."
"Don't tell me you plan to be out late with your Pokémon, looking for trouble," responded Dexio.
Nate felt a tiny bit insulted; it was like they doubted the resilience of a boy who could handle Team Plasma grunts – and not to mention some of their higher-ups – with ease. On the other hand, they did have a point; it would be quite foolish of him to invite undue danger, and Lumiose City was still a relatively unfamiliar place to him. That considered, Nate conceded, and headed for the lab's entrance with Pollux and the professor's assistants.
"Is it really so dangerous in this place at night?" Pollux asked, though of course only Nate could hear. "It's like they think there are assassins running about or something."
%%%
After taking the elevator to the laboratory's top floor, Nate was reasonably quick to found the sofa within the room, which he jumped towards to sit down on, flattening the cushions. The boy sighed in relief; nothing could beat a soft, roomy seat after having to ride a Pokémon in flight.
While Pollux had ensconced to one secluded corner to nap, and Dexio was busying himself with retrieving three cans of soda from the fridge, Sina took notice of the pendant orb that hung from the Unova boy's neck.
"That stone there… where'd you find it?" she asked Nate, who was beginning to slump into a reclining position upon the couch until he was spoken to, upon which he immediately righted himself, sitting as though he were expecting an important guest, and held the spherical stone between his thumb and forefinger.
"This?" said the boy. "I, well, found it on in a route next to Geosenge Town, one with a whole lot of stones everywhere." Studying his ornament under the building's fluorescent light, Nate turned his hand to different degrees, noticing that the jewel-like ball seemed to reflect a range of different colors depending on how he was looking at it. Even as Dexio handed a refreshingly cold soda can to Nate, he didn't avert his gaze from the ever-changing hues of the stone; he could not help to think that it was quite an alluring sight to behold.
"Really? Hmm, how interesting!" remarked Sina, before she proceeded to drink her soda with quiet gulps.
"Interesting?" Nate's eyes widened with curiosity.
"As you said," explained Dexio, "Route 10 is filled with many, many stones, and rumor has it that those stones emit some type of energy."
Nate stared intently at the hazy center of his pendant stone. "Does this stone have energy in it?"
The blond boy downed a full can's worth of soda in the blink of an eye. "It's likely. That one there actually looks like the ones that the professor keeps around."
It was when Dexio had mentioned Professor Sycamore that the Unova boy suddenly realized something. "Speaking of which… where is the professor?"
Sina shrugged. "He said he was going a few towns over or something for some important research. He should be back soon… hopefully."
Dexio scoffed at his partner's optimism. "Don't hold your breath. You know how interested the professor is in that whole "Mega Evolution". And remember last time he said he was going away for some research? We didn't see him for a whole month."
Nate's jaw began to hang open. "Wha-what did you just say?"
"Yes, a whole month," the blond boy repeated himself. "What an awful month that was."
Sina interrupted, "Awful?! What was so awful about getting to order pizza for dinner every day for a month?"
"That stuff isn't cheap, you know," Dexio replied. "And you never let me choose the toppings!"
"That's because you wouldn't know good pizza toppings if they came up and bit you in the-"
"No, not that!" Nate suddenly interjected, making the other boy and girl stop arguing; he couldn't afford to let the discussion derail any further. "You said the professor was interested in what now?"
"Mega Evolution," Dexio recited. "The professor hasn't told us much about it, but as you can guess, it must be related in some way to normal Pokémon evolution."
"Ohhh…" said Nate.
Of course, the Unova boy had already witnessed a Pokémon undergoing Mega Evolution before, courtesy of Shalour City's Korrina and her Lucario. Through the rather one-sided battle between her Pokémon and his, Nate had little doubt that Mega Evolution did indeed deserve to be named as such, and he was admittedly very intrigued about it.
For a Pokémon to achieve a new and unprecedented level in strength… Didn't someone back in Unova have something to say about that? He couldn't exactly recall at the moment.
After that, Nate, Sina and Dexio continued to talk more about various other subjects, like their favorite Pokémon and what movies they liked to watch; their chatting had run well into the night, until the brown-haired boy could barely prevent his eyelids from drooping shut.
"You should sleep here for the night." Sina had pulled a thick, fluffy blanket from the closet, and handed it to Nate. "It'll be safer to go out in the morning."
"Thanks, guys." Nate smiled, and watched as the professor's assistants took the elevator down, leaving the boy alone (save for Pollux, who was still asleep and faintly glowing after the lights had been shut off.)
With a deep yawn, the boy slipped under the blanket and lied flat on the couch, quickly falling asleep.
%%%
The next morning, Nate was suddenly awakened from sleep by Pollux; the Sylveon had for some reason decided to ensnare the boy with its ribbon feelers, and then tug hard, desperately as though the couch and blanket were putting him in grave danger.
"Mmh… Pollux, what are you doing?" Nate murmured, resisting the pull of the Fairy-type's feelers.
Pollux stopped pulling after seeing Nate's eyes slowly open. "Nate, do you hear that?"
Both of them stopped talking in an attempt to listen for anything unusual, but either there were no strange sounds, or Nate wasn't properly listening; he couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary.
"I can't hear it."
Rubbing his tired eyes clean, the boy saw Pollux's long pink ears faintly twitch every few moments. "It sounds like something's happening outside. Let's check it out!"
After Nate had been sly enough to sneak something to eat from the fridge, he and Pollux took the elevator and left the lab. Now that they were out in the open of the city's boulevard, Nate listened closely, and this time, he swore he could hear something echoing in the distance. Pollux's ears continued to twitch about, and the Sylveon began to walk towards the central plaza, having seemingly indentified the source of the alleged noise.
As Nate followed the Pokémon, the sound he was hearing gradually became more distinct. Approaching closer and closer towards the city's center, the indiscernible rumbling soon emerged as what sounded like… cheering? Or rather, cheering and something else too…
…O! …K!
Nate almost flinched in surprise. "It can't be… can it?"
…E! …M! …O-N! Pokémon!
A small crowd had gathered around one side of Prism Tower, and it wasn't long before Nate saw – and not to mention, heard – the reason.
P! O! K! E! M! O-N! Pokémon!
There was only one person that came to mind when Nate heard that simplistic, yet addictive tune.
"Roxie?!"
The boy eased past the people that had come to hear the music, and just as he had guessed, there stood a white-haired girl in a striped dress that looked more like an oversized shirt. While strumming vigorously on her bass guitar, she continued to shout lyrics into the stand mic in front of her, which along with the speakers there appeared to be set up on short notice. Though the audience for her sudden performance was relatively small, about four or five dozen people at most, the applause that ensued after she finished was thunderous.
"Yeah, thanks," said Roxie after the cheering had finally died down. "But look, I got somethin' important to do, so enough of that, okay?"
The speakers and mic were hastily carted off as Roxie walked off; her fans were respectful enough to allow her some room to walk, but a certain boy in a red visor had caught her eye.
"Well, well," she said to Nate as she approached. "If it isn't Egg-head!"
As happy as Nate was to see a familiar face, that name she had given him made him want to choke. Claiming to have some trouble remembering the names of most people, the Gym Leader of Virbank City had the tendency to assign nicknames to anyone who challenged her for the Toxic Badge, and Nate was just unfortunate enough to remind the girl of an Exeggutor, based on the leaves-like bush of hair that always stuck out from above his favorite visor.
"Hey, Roxie," replied the boy. He noticed that her other band members hadn't shown up to play with her. "Where's Billy Jo and whats-his-face?"
The crowd of music enthusiasts began to disperse when they saw that Roxie was busy talking to who they considered some random stranger. "They're back in Unova, duh. I dropped by here when some friend of mine told me about what my old man was doing here, but I guess I got a couple fans in this town that wanted to hear me play."
"But how did you get here so fast?" Nate scratched his head in confusion.
"Got someone to pull a few strings for me and fly me here real quick." Roxie flashed a smug grin. "Now where's the old man, Egg-head? I wanna get home already!"
"Your dad?" Nate asked. "Maybe he's still shooting commercials at that video place." The boy pulled out the business card that Mr. V. Deeoh, the mauve-suited man, had given him earlier, and was reminded that he was told that the studio he worked at was in Lumiose City's South Boulevard. It wasn't the most helpful reminder, but it was a decent lead. "Let's go and look for him!"
Nate ran with Pollux towards the boulevard on the outer edge of the city, but Roxie made it a point not to follow after the boy with too much fervor; her fans in this region had already seen her talking to the visor-wearing boy in some length, and she preferred that they would not be in any position to make undue assumptions regarding herself and Nate.
