Wallace and Red led Loch and Zinnia inside the gym. As Loch looked around, he could easily tell it was a water-type gym: a massive waterfall could be seen in the back and a moat ran around the gym floor.

"Nice place you got here" he told Wallace, "My sister runs a water gym too, actually."

Wallace looked back to Loch, studying him for a few moments before smirking. "Ah, yes, I can see it. You must be Nessa's brother."

Loch looked confused. "You know her?"

"We've encountered each other before. I don't spend ALL my time in the gym, and neither does she, as you may know."

Loch shrugged. "I guess that's fair."

Suddenly, he winced in pain, clutching the part of his shoulder where the Flygon's Dragon Pulse had grazed. Worried, Zinnia looked at the wound to see the skin had been mildly burned.

"He needs treatment." she said. Wallace took a look at Loch's shoulder as well, Red peeking over as well.

"What on earth..." Wallace began.

"One of the Flygons" Loch explained. "Dragon Pulse. It would've been worse if Red hadn't stepped in."

Red glared at the wound but managed a nod to Loch. "Don't mention it."

Wallace winced as he saw the wound. "I'm afraid I don't have a healing pokemon on me. We'll just have to patch it up the old-fashioned way."

"Wallace!" a man's voice called out. The group turned to see a sharply dressed man with light blue hair approach them. His face seemed friendly, but the man currently had a concerned expression. "Is everything alright?"

Wallace gestured to Loch. "A burn wound from a Dragon Pulse."

He then faced the group and introduced the newcomer as Steven, Champion of Hoenn. Apparently, he, Red, and Wallace were meeting with each other when the sounds of Loch's battle alerted them, an issue made even more pressing when Zinnia burst into the gym and informed them of the situation before Red sent his Charizard out to deal with the situation.

After introductions were made, Steven called for the gym medic, who arrived alongside a Chansey to tend to Loch's arm as the group talked. Loch occasionally winced as his burns were treated, but he was able to focus on the conversation as Zinnia told Wallace, Steven, and Red about the Draconid traitors. Wallace became especially concerned.

Steven simply stroked his chin in deep thought. "Why would Rocket and Galactic be reaching out to Hoenn at all? They've never bothered with this region in the past."

"Your guess is as good as mine" Zinnia replied, "Grandma told me to come here to tell Wallace because he or you could help."

"Oh, believe me, I would love to, Zinnia." Wallace said, "I can't believe a member of our people could be so easily bought..."

"Unfortunately," Steven interjected, "We have issues of our own, though I believe this new event might be connected."

"Could be" Red agreed.

"Hold on" Loch asked, "What issues? What's been going on?"

Red gave him a quizzical look. "You seriously don't know?"

"Word must not have reached Galar yet" Wallace assumed, "Well, to fill you in, the so called "evil teams" that have taken residence throughout the regions have been acting strange; they've started working together, trying to build up influence again. Naturally, this grabbed the attention of the regions' Pokémon Champions rather quickly. Us and the gym leaders have been trying to figure out their end goal, but we haven't found much."

"Well, what have you found?" Loch as with a growing mixture of concern and interest.

Red was the one to answer. "All we know is that they've currently taken a particular interest in Sinnoh and whatever they needed required them to approach the Aether Foundation in Alola. We only know that because Lusamine, the foundation's head, contacted the Champions after she gave Rocket a, quote on quote, 'polite but firm rejection'. I can only assume what exactly she meant by that."

"While she didn't say much else" Steven added, "She did request that one of us meet with her for elaboration on some more details, if possible, which is the reason for us meeting here. We were deciding who should go that would attract the least amount of unwanted attention. Whatever these teams are planning, it can't be good if Lusamine refuses to share information simply over the phone."

By this time, the medic and Chansey had finished healing and bandaging Loch's arm, with the Chansey giving him one last, comforting pat on the shoulder before following its trainer out of the room. Loch flexed his healed arm as he processed the information; the arm still stung, but it was far less painful that before. He then got an idea.

"Send me" he said, "I'm just a traveling trainer, nowhere near as popular as you guys. People won't really think much of me anyway."

Wallace slowly nodded as this began to make sense to him. "It is possible."

"But you're a gym leader's brother, Loch" Red argued, "Won't that draw some head."

Loch shrugged. "I prefer to give my sister the gym spotlight. I preferred to spend more of my time exploring and training my Pokémon against other trainers than I did constantly fighting in a gym."

"I only knew he was related to Nessa because she told me about him." Wallace admitted. "I believe this could work."

Red was silent, his face still stern, but Steven then spoke up. "This could be possible. I will just need to give you some way of showing her that I sent you."

After some thought, Steven eventually decided on a simple white handkerchief with the icon associated with Mega Evolution over a printed silhouette of Metagross, Steven's favored Pokémon. Loch tucked away the handkerchief into his pocket.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Wallace asked, "Your arm-"

"Doesn't matter" Loch said, "It feels better anyway. Besides, this seems like a big deal, and I can't just ignore it."

"He won't be alone either." Zinnia suddenly spoke up, placing a hand on Loch's shoulder.

Loch looked at her in surprise. "Are you sure?"

Zinnia's face seemed hard and determined. "I have a duty to my people as Lorekeeper. I have to keep them protected, and if it means going to the ends of the earth, then so be it. Besides, they saw you with me, so Tyser will hunt you down whether I'm with you or not. Face it, you need my help, and I'm coming with you."

Loch and the others could see there was no changing her mind, so a short while later, Loch and Zinnia found themselves on a plane heading for Alola, with Steven, Wallace, and Red having bid them luck and said their farewells. Zinnia looked nervous the entire time in the airport, her eye flitting here and there. She didn't seem to calm down until the plane took off, her hands finally unclenching from the armrests. Loch looked at her with worry, though his Beedrill couldn't care less as he hovered right over Loch's lap, happily munching on a poffin; Loch's reward to him for helping against the Flygon riders.

Loch looked over at her as they were in the air. "Are you ok? You seemed scared."

Zinnia took a deep breath. "Tyser will be hunting us. He could have spies. The teams could have spies..." she sighed, "maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid."

Loch gently put a comforting hand on her own hand, still laying on the armrest. "We're in this together. You've seen some of my team; they're no pushovers, and something tells me your team isn't either."

Zinnia seemed to fully calm down here. She looked back at Loch, then smiled warmly at him, suddenly holding his hand in her own. "Thank you."

Loch simply nodded and smiled back before the two decided to get some rest during the long flight; they were going to need it for the journey ahead.

What the two didn't realize, however, was that a familiar trio was sitting some rows behind them, with the smallest member peeking his cat-like head over to see them.

"Geez..." Meowth remarked as he sat back down on James's lap. "There's a guy up there with no shirt on."

James scoffed, "No regards for public display at all," then, managing a glance himself as Meowth pointed him out, "though I will admit those muscles are making me a bit too self-aware of my own physique."

This earned him a slap on the head from Jessie. "Who cares about the muscles!? We need to focus on our task right now!

"Right, right" James said, "And, uh, what was that again?"

Jessie glared at James in annoyance. "We're supposed to get into the Aether Foundation and take what the bosses need. Lusamine won't cooperate, so we'll just steal it! our specialty!"

Meowth scratched his head. "I don't know about specialty..."

That only earned him a smack from Jessie before he could finish.

James sighed. "Anything to have a break from getting blown sky-high by those other twerps for the millionth time..."

"Agreed." the other two groaned.

It seemed like a race to Aether was on, though neither party was aware of the coming conflict...

While there are characters form the anime here, the majority of my focus is on the games with the world and story here (key word, majority). I'm trying to give this story a much more serious tone than we got in the anime, hence a bit more of my focus being on the games.

Let me know what you think so far!