Chapter 32: The Mega Aftermath Pt. 1

(Well I apologized last time for the longish wait between ch. 30 and 31, turns out this one was even longer. I got a new boss at work and have been busy as all heck since then. Still have been doing well but I was having trouble getting my thoughts together when I could find some time. So, in order to write a story I'd be happy with I took more time than usual before sitting down to write. As for the reviews, I get them sent to my email every time one comes in so I read all of them the second they're sent. I appreciate the feedback and compliments and hope I can deliver a story that many people, including myself, can be happy with. With that stuff aside, let's get on with the chapter).

General

The smoke cloud eventually cleared out and Red's squad was left in state of shock at the magnitude of the events that had just transpired.

Serena, White, and Yellow were more confused than Red's group as they had been dealing with a much smaller scale threat outside.

As suspected, It turned out that the outside attack was mostly a distraction that was meant to spread out the fighting power of Red's squad.

Unfortunately for Team Neo, they had severely underestimated the battle power of Red's team within the tower and even the legendary pokemon were severely beaten back by their combined powers and newly found mega evolutions.

Red turned to Blue and Platina and asked them "So how many trainers did you have to fight off before you could get your mega stones? I think I was going to have to take on over 30 of them at the rate things were going."

Blue and Platina both gave him a look that made him realize that his assumption that every trial was rigged was wildly off.

Blue started by saying "Well my challenge felt pretty normal, it was tough but Blasty and I just completed it and got the Blastoisinite as expected."

Platina affirmed Red's sinking suspicions by adding "On my end I was able to get the Lopunnite without too much trouble, honestly I was surprised to see you down here already since I thought that I had set the record for a Tower of Mastery trial clear."

Red pondered over this for a bit, while he did so, Yellow's team briefed the rest of the team on what had happened outside.

It looked like the outside force was clearly meant for diversion and there wouldn't be much need to worry about further outside threat.

Still, Yellow volunteered to be in charge of post-battle reconnaissance and promptly exited after the team agreed Yellow would be best suited for it.

After a bit more thinking, Red came to the conclusion that the overseers for the trials upstairs must have been the actual ones. There was no way an impostor overseer would be handing out the mega stones even if the rigged trial was cleared.

Before Red could even share his revelation though, Platina spoke up "Blue and I receiving our trials and mega stones like normal probably imply that only the overseer Red met was an intruder. We should focus on investigating under the tower ASAP. There's a chance we will find the real overseers and tower trainers somewhere there. "

Red, who was halfway through starting a sentence himself promptly shut his mouth and smiled slightly. It looks like his team would do well even if he went missing, which was something every strong leader would take pride and relief from.

Serena noticed that Red was about to say something and she was about to chime in that Red should share his thoughts too.

Before she spoke up though, she saw that Red had a small smile and noted that he was probably happy that Platina had come to a similar conclusion.

She felt an odd feeling of being happy that Red was happy… but also a bit jealous that Platina was the one that he was happy with.

"I shouldn't be like this, if Red knew that I was getting jealous over such a petty thing he'd probably dislike me…" Serena thought to herself in a very shoujo manga fashion.

Red wasn't nearly as aware as Serena about people's emotions, so he didn't notice that Serena was having her own bout of self-conflict.

As a result, he missed a chance to help her out and instead he went ahead and let the team know that they should split the team up into pairs so they could investigate the basement of the tower efficiently.

He pointed out that it was still possible that there were lingering Team Neo forces, or even worse, they could have a forward base established somewhere down there.

What Red didn't expect was that the temperature in the room to drop a good 10 Celsius after he mentioned "splitting into pairs".

At first, Red thought that they were under attack from some random ice pokemon.

He quickly realized that the source of the cold was not a pokemon, but instead it was attributed to the tension in the room.

Suddenly the team spontaneously broke into what could only be described as a "pro staring contest".

As the tension continued to rise (and the temperature continued to drop) Red was wracking his brain to figure out what the source of all this discord could have been.

"If only I had a way to break up this weird standoff…" Red wished silently.

There was a common saying in Kanto that you should be careful what you wish for (and most regions had variations of this saying with different sentiments like "Be careful when wishing upon a Victini/Jirachi"), Red soon realized that there was deep wisdom behind that saying.

Three sets of footsteps were heard entering through the Tower's entrance. Normally, regular conversation would have drowned the subtle sounds due to how far away the entrance was.

But currently the staring contest was still underway so even a Klefki hitting the ground could be heard.

Yellow was the first one Red noticed, which made sense, it was about time for her to get back from her scouting trip.

It was the next two people that followed behind Yellow that actually surprised him.

Korrina stepped to the right of Yellow and waved at him, the timing was surprising but Red felt reassured to see more capable people for the scouting mission.

Then another girl stepped out to the left and Red was genuinely surprised to see…

Lisia?

To explain why Lisia was here, we'll need to look back to Lisia's actions in Hoenn.

After the events in Slateport, Lisia was curious about Red's actual identity as she only knew that he was a dexholder and that he was working with the famous Professor Oak.

His strength and leadership in battle, along with how strong his teammates were, was out of the realm of normalcy.

In order to get to the bottom of this, she went to find the strongest trainer she knew.

"Uncle Wallace! It has been so long since the last time we got to talk!" Lisia enthusiastically greeted her uncle, the former champion of Hoenn in the video call they were in.

"Lisia! It has been tooooo long… how are you my dear niece?" Wallace made an exaggerated flourish of his hand as he greeted his niece.

"I'm doing well uncle, did you hear the news about the criminal organization attack on Slateport City during my contest showcase?" Lisia knew that Wallace was a bit whimsical so although this was definitely big news in the region, it was a coin flip whether or not Wallace had heard of it yet.

"Why of course dear, I always watch all of your contests to get inspiration for myself too." Wallace said in a very matter of fact manner.

"Haha no need to flatter me, I appreciate the compliment though. The thing is, the trainer who resolved that incident was someone I became acquainted with and I'm… uhhh interested in him." Lisia realized halfway through explaining her intentions that her face was starting to light up.

"Oho…?" Wallace thought to himself for a moment as he caught Lisia's expression change, before promptly replying "Of course, I can't promise that I know who he is but if he's a trainer strong enough to lead the suppression of a criminal organization's attack he must be quite strong."

"Well his name is Red, he seems to be from the Kanto region from what he said." Lisia admitted while noticing that her face had turned a bit redder from admitting the name of the man she wanted to know more about.

Lisia thought it was still probably a longshot that the former champion of Hoenn would know much about a random trainer from Kanto regardless of their strength.

To her surprise… Wallace looked taken aback "Did you say Red… from Kanto? By any chance, did he have a Pikachu with him?" He replied with wide open eyes.

"Errr, yeah he did. I thought it was a bit odd for a trainer of his caliber to still have a Pikachu and not a Raichu but believe it or not, that Pikachu was extremely powerful. Like, it was well past the point that a Pikachu should reasonably be able to reach." Lisia said while increasingly anticipating the response from Wallace.

"Well for better or for worse, Red is quite the strong trainer… and by that I mean he's the Pokemon League Champion of the Kanto region. In fact, he was the youngest champion ever in Kanto history, and I wouldn't doubt it if he was close to holding a world record there." Wallace said in an oddly serious manner, from Lisia's POV, there was no way Wallace was joking around here.

"Would you say… he's stronger than you then?" Lisia got a look at how strong Red was, but she wasn't sure if that was his full power now that the revelation that he was a well known champion from another major region of the world.

"Without a doubt, it's possible I could beat some of his team due to my specialty, but that Pikachu alone would be a huge problem for most of my team. Besides that, his instincts for battling in unconventional but effective ways is where he stands out the most. I highly doubt I would even a notable amount of matches against him… as embarrassing as it is to admit. I'd love to have a better showing for the region but honestly the current champion would probably fare better than I." Wallace said while scratching his head.

Wallace was known to be a very extravagant dresser and his personality both in competitions and in regular life reflected that.

That being said, it didn't mean that he was an arrogant or delusional kind of person. In fact, Lisia was proud of the fact that her uncle was good at being objective and understanding and acknowledging the strengths of others.

This probably contributed to his ability to learn from his competition and continue to become both a better performer as well as trainer.

Which is also why Lisia took Wallace's assessment very seriously when she heard about how Red was not only stronger than Wallace, he was likely on a different level when it came to battle flexibility.

With that in mind, Lisia became convinced that … getting to know Red better would certainly be a great chance for her to grow as a contest performer.

…And certainly not because she wanted to see him again, definitely not.

Luckily for Lisia, Wallace had contacts around the world and within a few minutes, he was able to tap into his network to find out that Red was last spotted in Shalour City.

Lisia proceeded to thank Wallace for the help and cleared her calendar for a while as she decided to head on a little excursion to Kalos for research purposes.

Strictly research purposes.

(A/N: And here we are at the end of the first part of this mini arc. It shouldn't be nearly as long as the Tower of Mastery arc but I think it made the most sense to split this area up into more parts. It helps me with organizing my thoughts and I think it logically flows best. Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter and I will see you in the next one!)