A reporter stood in an open field of wrecked earth and scorched trails. The technology that was once used there was long since discarded (meaning, hidden to avoid scrutiny), leaving only the physical sighs.

The camera cut to a gaping hole in a glass pane and a remarkably clean interior lacking in any physical recordings or notation.

"I stand at the site of a catastrophic experiment performed by the UR under the leadership of an independent scientist that was previously a member of-"

The newslady pressed a finger to her earpiece, muttering something into it and swearing inaudibly.

"-Excuse me, I do mean, an independent scientist that hails from Unova. The experiment was to take place in order to mimic the abilities of the urban legend, the Aura Guardian. Why is he an urban legend?"

She quickly whispered into her earpiece again.

"It's because I haven't gotten him in for an interview, alright? I won't believe in something I've never seen!"

Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz.

"Yes, I used to work in tabloid journalism, what's your point?"

She straightened up as she was informed that the camera was still running.

"Ahem. The experiment was going well, until it wasn't. Some sort of instability in the A-I-A-M fields caused the Golurk performing the experiment to go berserk. Luckily, our station has procured the footage of the heroes that prevented this rogue Pokémon to hurt anyone, and you'll be watching it now."

A black and white CCTV clip played of three people in spandex, the colors unintelligible, racing out into the field and pushing back an enraged Golurk, whose aura seemed to be interfering with the recording program.

As the earth shook, the sound of a screw popping was recorded, and the camera fell to the ground before the footage cut away.

"As you can see, three unknown individuals in spandex were able to-"

Lysandre swiped the window away on Augustine's Holo Caster, placing it face down between them.

"We're claiming anonymity?" Sycamore asked, a theatrical eyebrow raised.

"It is simpler than feeding conspiracy theorists. They see connections in the most trivial of things. Simply naming FLARE among the attendees would only verify those claims."

"You did ask us to be there." Sycamore's eyes took on a glint. "Where were the rest of our contingent? Colress said that they had arrived, but I didn't see them."

Lysandre turned in his chair, facing out the tinted window that lead to a deep chasm. "Perhaps that was a mistake on your part."

"My kids were there, Lysandre. That could have gone so much worse and you know it. Imagine an unstable Aura Guardian level Anomaly."

"They defeated it, did they not?" Lysandre waved him off. "It's over and done with, as they say. FLARE will benefit greatly, the UR will allow us to condense our power in Kalos, and a mad scientist has lost his credibility."

"That sounds almost conspiratory. Perhaps the theories about what exactly attracts Anomalies to Lumiose-3 aren't so unfounded."

Lysandre glared out into the deep pit. The bottom continued to hide outside of his vision, but the faint blue and red lights seeped upward as their sources spun at the bottom.

"Do not joke about such things. You may accidentally reveal information that will have the city crashing down upon us."

"I was being sardonic, Lysandre."

"It wasn't funny."

Sycamore sagged. "Of course."

There was a brief silence where they were both lost in thought.

Lysandre snapped his fingers, the small sound permeating through the lengths of black murals.

"The first of our agents will be traveling to Kalos within the summer. Inform your… team, and have them intercept should anything untoward occur."

"You're worried about her partner," Sycamore said.

Lysandre looked out into the revolving lights.

"Naturally. Having bait at an opportune time is essential."

"Don't hurt my team, Lysandre. Not unless you must."

"They were already hurt. It simply seems they have forgotten what loss is."

Serena and Blanche flashed through his mind, his daughter coming soon after.

Augustine breathed, speaking only to himself. "I wouldn't say so."


The last full month of school before break, May, showed off the last bits of spring as it began fading into summer.

Blanche was idly shocked by how quickly the time had passed. It seemed like only a week ago, he'd woken up, and then sprinted to where he was now.

The winter coats disappeared completely but the colors never changed. Everyone was about as consistent as they could be when the sort-of apocalypse threw them out of wack two and a half years prior. Blanche is a relatively boring fellow, his name only a few letters off from blank, and so he'd started wearing short red tee on blue jeans. The money Mrs. Grace gave back to him out of his paycheck was more than enough to buy some new clothes.

And even if wearing red was sort of morbid, it matched his eyes, practically confirming he was a fashion genius.

No sarcasm here at the studio, none at all.

Trevor's birthday was coming up, so he'd been thinking about that more than anything. Nothing special, but surely he'd appreciate a custom placemat for his card games. He even had the GAME owner get a special print of Dark Magician Gallade and everything.

It could be worse. The idea of a Dark Magician Gardevoir really squicked him out.

The airlock opened with a hiss, and he was greeted by Clemont and Michael talking while the former was trying to… sew at the table?

He was doing a good job at the very least.

He'd gotten a text about a new Gear, so Blanche said, "Is that a mock-up?"

Clemont had already looked up, and he grinned. "Ah, yes!" He held up the pink spandex, cut open by the sewing needle in multiple places. Clearly a mock-up, then.

"We're playing a water level in July. Escort mission at that," Michael said, calm as he always was when Clemont wasn't trying to accidentally blow up his computer.

"We are?"

"You haven't heard?" They both asked with more obvious concern coming from the blond.

Blanche shook his head, inadvertently throwing his hair all over the place. He probably needed to get a trim or to start using hairspray.

"No. What's the deal?"

"There's a special shipment coming in that we'll need to protect just in case. Nothing too crazy," Michael said, before immediately starting to type at a few hundred words a minute. His hands were a blur to Blanche.

"But it's going to be a small fleet of cargo ships, so I thought it's better to be prepared!" Clemont again held up the mock suit. "I don't have a full model yet, but once I figure out the breathing systems, I'll have the designs sent in for special construction. I can make a lot of things, but not many people have the dexterity for seven-ninths of a millimeter tubing."

Obviously, Blanche thought but didn't say.

"So what is it, a wetsuit?"

"Well, since we can take advantage of your battery, I decided to just give you the whole nine yards." Clemont picked up two long tanks and clanked them together. "Since you can teleport additional equipment and all."

"Handy. Are the Professors not in?" It was a weekday afternoon and the whole Golurk Synchro Project had since cooled down.'

"Doc's up in their office writing a paper or something for the next conference," Michael said. "Dunno about the Professor though. He looked kind of pissed if I'm being honest."

"He can get angry?" Blanche asked, shocked.

Michael shrugged. "Looks like it."


On June 3rd, a Sunday, it was Trevor's birthday. Even as Blanche and Ariel teamed up to cook the biggest and fruitiest stack of pancakes that he could, he laughed to himself that Trevor was older than him but still two heads shorter.

Trevor and Tierno sat side by side at the table, sharing Trevor's Holo Caster as they waited. The birthday boy himself seemed either frustrated or incredibly confused, as his brow kept furrowing further.

"Blanche."

He half-turned around, fiddling with the ties of his own frilly white apron that matched Ariel's. "Yeah?"

"Did you know that people are shipping the FLARE Rangers now?"

He stopped chopping Rawst Berries and set the knife down.

"They're what?"

"They're calling it Rangershipping."

I'm going to commit whatever passes for ritual suicide around here, he thought as he calmly walked over to investigate. Calmly in this case meaning with barely constrained rage.

The picture that he had pulled up was of a crazy person in front of a tack board with a dozen red threads connecting three pictures in all sorts of ways. The photos were blurry and definitely taken by bystanders and not FLARE, but the colors stood out enough.

"Okay, before I say anything, is Shauna behind me about to smack me with a frying pan?"

"They're still upstairs." Serena and Shauna were a two-part set, it went without saying.

"Right. So, is it fair for me to ask what the," he paused, glancing up at Ariel, who was stirring purplish Belue Berries into the batter. "What the heck that's about?"

"If you weren't aware, it's sort of your fault," Trevor said, looking up without a hint of guilt.

"Who are you, Shauna?"

"Be nice, Blanche," Ariel chided.

He didn't get embarrassed by her saying so, that would be ridiculous.

"Can you explain, at least?"

"Serena was essentially an urban legend, a ghost story about FLARE's power that they could throw around. Most people attributed any destruction to her fights to someone's Pokémon. It all seems to have started sometime in January, a little after you arrived."

"Probably when I tackled that one dude out of the sky."

"I thought that was someone lying." Trevor scrolled with a profound expression. "How about that?"

"And how did that lead to…"

Blanche trailed off as a sketch of people in black and pink spandex appeared.

Tierno just laughed at his expression.

"Okay, that's just weird."

"People thought you were her and that she was you."

"Is it because I'm Pink?"

"That depends. Which answer is less offensive to you personally?"

"Neither."

"Then yes, but also because she's Black."

"No, that was the Plasma grunt."

"What?"

"Uh, I mean, gender stereotypes, hurray. Anyway."

"Ah… So people took pictures of you, and then did what most people do when they need an easy excuse for self-indulgence."

"Write fanfiction?"

"Again, are you feeling alright? But most of the time, they just imagined what you two looked like under the helmets, usually with either one of them looking like the artist."

"I see. I'm flattered… I think."

"And as far as I know, it wasn't a big thing."

"Right."

"Then Shauna joined FLARE."

"Right."

"Do you two know how loudly you argue?"

"Between one and two hundred decibels, depending on the day."

"That's hyperbole but otherwise accurate. And some people overheard that, and got ideas."

"Like, of discord in FLARE? I think it's pretty stable."

"You really are oblivious. They thought you two had too much UST to not take advantage of."

"How do people get that from one conversation? And there isn't any UST, just to be clear!"

Trevor gave a half-nod. "Sure, I've heard that one before. But my point is, that led to another bunch of people writing their own pairings. And of course, because no triangle is complete without a third angle, now Black and Yellow are a thing."

"There isn't a triangle, don't be stupid… Wait, are they not?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

"Excuse me, I have a question," Ariel asked, expertly flipping a pancake.

"Of course, Ariel," Trevor responded.

"What's shipping?"

Blanche's glare at the two other boys had a very clear message.

She can never know.

Trevor raised his eyebrow.

How do you?

Blanche sighed.

"Everyone is crazy around here except for me. At least I've got a helmet to protect me."

And with that, Blanche was hit with an intense sense of foreboding.

"FLARE better not be making propaganda capitalizing on this."

Trevor just looked at him. "You have met the Professor."


And he did so again later that month, just a week later.

The Professor stood with a dramatic-effect-only clipboard with the three FLARE Rangers and the other scientist, their technician, and their engineer. And remarkably, only two of them were older than seventeen. Probably.

Blanche sure acted like a stupid teenage boy, as if he'd never been anything else.

"There's a delicate shipment coming into Kalos soon. The UR wants us to guard the ship as soon as they enter Kalosian waters, so we'll be taking a helicopter. The first FLARE Ranger, Dahlia, is coming back from Unova as well."

"The what?"

Augustine sighed and walked over to tap the clipboard on Blanche's head. "Don't you pay any attention? You're Ranger 02."

"Yeah, and Serena's 01. And you can't build people, so there wouldn't be a prototype to call 00."

Augustine seemed to let out a puff of air that sounded more like a laugh.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no, Dahlia is FLARE Ranger 00, Geranium is 01, you are, or Amaranth is, 02, and Rue is 03."

"Seems a little out of order," he noticed. It was some weird trick of his brain's pattern recognition, as he figured the fourth Ranger would have been fourth in the list.

"You're imagining it. Now, any questions?"

"Who's Dahlia, anyway?" Shauna asked, her arms crossed likely out of frustration with Blanche for being in the same room as her. Or something else equally stupid that he came up with, Blanche is an idiot.

Sycamore wagged a finger in her face. "Now, that would be telling!"

Aveline clutched her face in a renewed embarrassment. "Dad…"

Parents could be like that even if she was truthfully a bit more tempered on the inside.

"You'll see when we get there anyway. And if nothing goes wrong, we can go to Coumarine City after we're done with the delivery."

Blanche raised an eyebrow. "If we have to be there in the first place, then that's a really big if."

"Ah." Sycamore put one hand on his hip, the other behind his head, and let out an awkward laugh. "Well, if you absolutely must know, Dahlia's real name is Rosa."

It took Blanche until he got home, wrote the late-June date on his calendar app, and in his room to actually think about that fact.

"Oh."

He looked up at his mirror as he began unwrapping his bandages from the sweltering day.

"...Son of a-"


Blanche's hair blew in the wind as the helicopter's door slid open and revealed the expanses of the deep blue sea, all around him except for beneath his feet.

Hundreds of huge metal cargo boxes lined the deck of the ship, colored with rust. A few other similar but smaller ships brought up the rear. The sun beat down on them as it had been for the last few weeks. Which is to say, mercilessly and harshly.

Augustine took the first step onto the deck of the barge, stance wide as he waved to those standing near the helipad with an arm holding onto an inner pillar. "Greetings!"

A black dog-like Pokémon barked, its green scarf waving in the constant breeze, as the Unovans waved. Another Professor but in the orange-blonde variation stood idly though clearly in charge.

He'd been told their names obviously, but actually seeing them in person was as much of a shock as always.

The Professor was obviously Juniper, the topknot swirl too distinctive to miss. She already seemed tired of the Professor, indicating to Blanche there was probably some sort of history there.

Rosa, a girl with twin brown ponytails tied into hair buns behind her cycling hat, stood next to the strangely patterned (Hexagonal?) Pokémon. Coming from Unova, she was the female protagonist of the sequel games set there. Where the male one was, he hadn't a clue. Though given the track record of male protagonists he didn't meet, he was sure it wasn't a good sign.

Shauna kicked him forward, and he hoped that he hadn't been staring too long. Why would he be doing that? Hormones? Don't be ridiculous.

Blanche righted himself, keeping a hand on his cap to avoid losing it. It was special to Serena, even if it was for the wrong reasons.

The oversized fan blades on the VTOL which FLARE just happened to have laying around began slowing as Michael slid out of the pilot's seat. Whatever simulations he ran 24/7, they were clearly useful.

"Augustine," Juniper replied, hands in her pockets. "Glad to see you brought everyone in FLARE with you." The comment was clearly aimed at the clown car that could be called their ride, as Aveline stepped down slowly and Clemont's bag pushed him out with a metal leg formed out the back.

"I thought we could all get to know one another better since Dahlia is going to be transferring to the main headquarters and all."

Juniper's eyebrows quirked upward. "Code names now, Augustine? This is a UR ship, there's very little chance of a data leak compared to your team's performances."

"We're lucky microphones pick up ozone burning better than battle cries," Michael deadpanned almost inaudibly.

Juniper clapped the other girl on the shoulder and gave her a shake. "Introduce yourself and your partner."

The bubbly girl smiled even wider if that was physically possible. Just then, Blanche noticed the stark blueness of her eyes. To imitate a cliche, they shone like the ocean.

He then gagged, as the statement being said in his mind made him feel stupid enough to elicit a physical reaction. It was really not the best time to get sick.

"Hi! I'm Rosa!" She held out a peace sign, little stars appearing in the air around her.

He looked over to Michael to check if he was imagining that, and through the returned glance, it was revealed that no, he wasn't crazy, the laws of physics were.

She dropped down into a squat and wrapped her arms around her partner, who nuzzled roughly into her neck. "And this is my awesome partner, Tencent! Be nice to him, okie?"

Blanche and Shauna tilted their heads in unison.

"What kind of-"

"What kind of- Shut up, mummy, I'm talking."

"-Pokémon is that?" He continued before she could.

"What kind of- Were you listening to me?" She turned on her heel and berated him, electricity sparking up in the air. "I said I was talking!"

Blanche rolled his eyes, looking back over to the strange Pokémon. Green and black hexagons…

Could it have been a Zygarde? Why would some girl just have a Legendary Pokémon? And the 10% form, thus the name (A stupid name for a Pokemon, but again, he was literally just called white in French), but Zygarde's alternate forms were an Aether Foundation development if he remembered correctly.

"He's a Zygarde! I found him when he was a little blob, and now we're besties," she giggled, snuggling the Dragon-Ground-Type. "FLARE lets me take care of him as long as I work for them!"

Blanche shot both Sycamores a questioning look, but neither answered. FLARE had a lot more power than he'd initially thought. A city-state at the center of Kalos, with a thousand arms across the world and an in with the United Regions. Anyone would have been worried by that, even if they worked for the organization itself.

A fierce wind kicked up from the ocean, a storm starting to blow in from the far south.

"As much as I enjoy the view," Augustine said, immediately looking to the horizon to absolve himself of any accusations from the other professor, "Perhaps we should continue this inside."

Juniper nodded, her lab coat whipping around her wildly. "There's a cafeteria below deck, if any of you are hungry," she said.


As they sat down among a crowd of sailors and their Machokes, Augustine started flirting with Juniper further without a second thought, leaving the rest of them without much to say.

Well, other than the obvious.

As Michael cracked open an iced coffee, Blanche asked, "So, uh, Rosa. What's your primary type? I'm not like, a scientific guy, but strategies kind of click together during fights, so if I've got an idea rolling around in my head-"

"Mummy, what are you even talking about?" Shauna flicked his forehead, sending a buzzing sensation across his skin with a snap.

Internally, he sighed, as he weakly rubbed his forehead.

"Well, actually, I share my typing with Tencent! It's totally awesome."

The Pokémon sat next to her, tongue sticking out of its angular jaws, swiveling its head as they spoke but doing nothing else.

Rosa scratched its head rapidly, laughing as she continued, "We're like, partners, you know? You see how his eyes are kind of blue? That's him acting like me, it's the cutest."

Blanche stared at Tencent's empty, stark-white hexagonal eyes and resolved to just agree. "Ah, yeah. Is that the Bond Phenomenon?" He trailed off as he looked over to Aveline for confirmation. He was far out of his depth, as the Bond Phenomenon was a one-time thing from the show that gave the main character a special powerup in the season where everyone got a special powerup.

"I b-believe so." Aveline readjusted her half-moon glasses. "It's nice to finally meet you, Rosa. I'm Aveline Sycamore, the Pokémon Professor. Well, the younger, the Professor would be my father…"

As she said this, further down the table, the following conversation was heard:

"Say, Aurea, do you have a map for your eyes?"

Professor Juniper sighed. "No, I don't think I brought one with me."

"Shame, I keep getting lost in them."

Aveline buried her face in her hands, red with embarrassment. Michael patted her back sympathetically.

"Oh, that's true, I don't think we all introduced ourselves," Clemont added, tapping his chin. "I'm Clemont, I design Blanche's special weapons."

"Ooh, really?" Rosa asked, immediately leaning forward in anticipation. "What kind of special? Is it a really big gun? Is it? Can I use it?"

Tencent barked, its scarf rising like a muscle and pulling her back as if telling her not to get carried away.

"I'm Michael," said the red-haired porcupine.

Of course, Blanche got the feeling that if he ever actually called him that, the next time he needed a Gear in the field it would come too little too late.

"I run the computer back at base. I'm also ranked in the top ten in Smogon University's simulation ladder."

"Oh, Nate loves that game! I'll text him and ask him what rank he is, but he's playing it all the time, I swear."

At least that male protagonist wasn't, y'know, dead, like Blanche expected. He felt guilty for thinking of such a morbid thing so easily.

Rosa turned to the other three, two of which were squished together next to her (Though he wasn't sure Shauna was complaining), and with Blanche sat in the corner of the table adjacent to the two other boys.

"So, which one of you is Pink?"

He was about to correct her by saying red, but she continued.

"It's kind of a toss-up, I know that Black is, um…"

"Serena." Serena suddenly remembered to smile, however thinly, after a moment and added, "Nice to meet you."

"Aw, you too! Let's be besties, 'kay? But I'm confused, ya know? I can never tell the difference between Pink and Yellow in the footage."

"Footage?" Blanche asked, an odd sense of foreboding settling in his stomach.

"Yeah, Professor Juniper shows me your fights sometimes when I'm not fighting with those weird new Team Plasma people." Rosa made a sour face. "So annoying."

I have a feeling this is going to come back later, Blanche noted, swallowing lead.

"So, which one of you is it?"
Blanche sighed. "Yes, I'm Pink. So what? A guy can wear pink without it being weird, can't he?"

"Totally! I mean, I was thinking it could have been either of you, because…"

Rosa made some sort of hand gestures like she was miming a box in front of her, though he really didn't get it.

Shauna clearly did at some point and whipped towards Rosa, looking scandalized. "Are you calling me flat?"

At which point Blanche decided he needed to go for a walk to avoid electrical burns. The discussion was getting a little too men-writing-women for him to handle, though he hadn't a clue what that meant either. Maybe the cargo ship's shaking was making him a bit sick.


Blanche only took a cursory glance at the ship's map, thinking that it was really just a big cargo ship and there wasn't much to get lost in.

He was wrong, as he quickly lost his sense of direction after a few miscounted left turns among the hundreds of shipping containers.

No one ever said that Blanche was smart, exactly.

Perhaps it was that innate sense all teenage boys had to explore and conquer, as he didn't have much other reason than wanting to avoid Shauna's omnidirectional wrath.

The sky was growing dimmer, the few clouds he could see riding on the edges of his skyward periphery. The wind blew weakly if at all, cut off from the ocean by the intimidating stacks of metal.

Blanche traced a hand along the cool metal, relishing in the relief from the humidity. Zoned out, he walked around a striped orange barricade, the kind used to block roads, as it didn't reach all the way to the wall.

The containers were all a uniform purple, emblazoned with two letters. UR.

It made sense, he idly recognized. It was a United Regions ship.

It got weird when additional words started being listed, some of which he knew, some he didn't.

GOLURK SYNCHRO PROJECT? He helped kick the ass of that experiment. He realized that he didn't know what happened to either the Golurk or the grunt afterward, and he noted to ask later.

CGI? The Professors used that acronym for his Gear. Clemontic Gear something-something, they never specified and he once again felt like an idiot for not asking.

PROTOTYPE: SANTIAGO? He straight up didn't recognize that, which was an odd feeling. Most of the time, there was at least a vague sense of familiarity even if he didn't quite remember something. A total void drew him to it, like a vacuum in space.

His hand found a stainless handle, and he hesitated. It wasn't like he'd never broken boundaries before, but those instances had been for reasons better than just curiosity.

His palm rested on the shell of that final container, the cold sending a low buzz of static through his bandages to his skin. There was a tug at the front of his head, the wind whipping up and blowing the sides of his hair towards the container and making his hat pitch further forward on his head.

Blanche shuddered. Creepy, he thought.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He froze as he felt droplets land on his hat. It was a classic horror scenario, where the monster was either directly above the final girl or right behind.

So naturally, he threw himself to the side on the wettening deck, crashing violently but avoiding the…

Rain. It was raining.

Blanche pushed himself to his feet and readjusted his cap, looking around for witnesses to his wrong-genre-savviness. Of course, the word he used was stupidity, but he was embarrassed regardless.

It was odd though, he realized. Clouds weren't supposed to spin like that, and they definitely weren't supposed to surround the sun like that.

A chunk of ice dropped into the pit of his stomach. Of course, something was going wrong, why did he expect anything else?

He ran to find the entrance to below decks as purple lightning cracked the sun in two.


"I was clearly too optimistic," he spat as he wrung out his red tee, despite being unable to do anything about the bandages that covered his arms. At least his chest was drier than his limbs. His hat was flung onto a table next to Michael's laptop as he rolled up his jeans to keep the water from pooling in his shoes.

Everyone else had been inside, looking at him with varying degrees of pity, even Shauna, who he'd expected a mocking laugh from. That actually pissed him off more than it would have otherwise.

He pulled the shirt extra tight, sighing with great force. "Anytime we go somewhere, there's always weird shit. Is there a magnetic plot device strapped to someone's back? You know, big red target? Serena, you might have seen it."

Serena shook her head, picking the hat up off the table and popping its cap back into place as she said, "No, I don't believe I have. Though if it was on my back, I wouldn't know."

"Aura does seem to have that effect," Juniper said, smirking for some reason. Maybe she knew someone with the same experiences.


Somewhere across the world, Hilbert Johannson's helmet melted into the sand of the soul in order for him to shove some popcorn in his mouth. He'd kicked a seat out of a nearby mountaintop as he watched one of his old partners, Abra, attempt to duel the Mythical Monkey King of eastern Asia, the Infernape that Blazed with a fire that was equal to Heaven.

Also known as Sun Wukong.

Abra teleported behind the hundred-foot-long trail of flames as a punch was delivered faster than the eye could see, and a cone was carved out of the mountain range for a straight mile.

Hilbert suddenly half sneezed and half choked.

"Someone is talking about me again." He blinked as Abra delivered an Acrobatics that broke the sound barrier, striking four times in a single punch. "Oh, hell yeah!"


"What's happening out there?" Rosa asked, leaning on Michael's head and looking at his computer with a quizzical look.

Michael seemed more annoyed than anything else. "Getting too old for this…"

"Aren't you about our age?" Shauna asked.

"I've studied under multiple professors, you're still in Trainer School," he said, ignoring the point while his typing accelerated. "We are not the same."

"Ugh," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "I can see where Blanche gets it."

"Huh?" Our bandage babe asked with ever so much sophistication.

Serena cut across both of them, one of many to see that the conversation was going nowhere. "Is it an Anomaly?"

"In the weather?" Michael asked sarcastically. "Definitely. It's like we're at the center of a hurricane, though the weather forecast is completely clear according to ships that recently passed this way."

Juniper, behind the crowd of teenagers, elbowed Augustine. "So, it looks like to me that the kids don't need an old fart like you, do they?"

Augustine winced. "I'm supervising, but Aveline's getting better with talking. I don't need to translate. Also, I'm not thirty yet."

"And yet, you're chasing a woman almost a decade your senior."

"Grace is very good looking for her age, I assure you."

Juniper's eye twitched. "Who's this Grace?"

Augustine suddenly realized that he'd taken a fatal slip.

Back to the main conflict, Michael was looking through data from the RKS satellites. Weather patterns, maps, recordings.

The storm seemed to have come out of nowhere, and he replayed the rapid change for a full minute.

Rosa stopped chatting, looking closer at the map. "Ooh, there!" She pointed at a randomly darker spot on the image overlay, just a shadow on the ocean.

At first glance, at least.

Aveline adjusted her glasses, leaning over Michael's opposite shoulder. "I see… Oh!"

"Exactly!" Rosa suddenly jumped back, slamming a fist into her open palm. "It's a really big Sharpedo!"

Aveline started, "That's…"

"Really?" Shauna interrupted to ask with disbelief. The rest of the question hung in the air; is she really our new teammate?

"It's possible," Blanche shrugged in response to the first part. He thought about the weird things he'd seen, and honestly? A big shark? He would be surprised if it wasn't something ridiculous like that.

"It's… certainly in the realm of possibility," Aveline finished weakly, withdrawing slightly.

"Can we go check?" Rosa asked, bouncing on her heels.

Blanche looked away out of common courtesy while Aveline looked to Clemont.

"Is the morph gear waterproof?" Her eyes darted over to Blanche for a mere second, specifically his chest. Because that was where his battery was attached to his exoskeleton, why else?

Clemont readjusted his glasses, bringing a sheen to the lenses. "Of course! Technology has advanced to incredible levels since the stone age known as the time of the Macintosh and Pong cabinets. The future of waterproofing is now, thanks to-"

Michael jumped out of his chair to tackle Clemont and prevent him from finishing that sentence.

"Do you know how much my laptop cost?"


The four FLARE Rangers ran outside, not yet in morph form but with their fingers itching for the switches, along with a certain portion of Zygarde.

Rain swept sideways, bouncing off the ground and slamming into Blanche in waves. It was hard to believe that not an hour before, he could barely see a cloud in the sky. As the sun hung above them, it provided only enough light to see beneath the charcoal-gray clouds. Had he not been able to feel the chill beneath his bandages, he wouldn't have been able to tell how doused they had been.

Sailors ran around them, their classical white hats being whipped away every second. After the sudden storm began, they rushed to check and secure the many hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo.

"Damn!" He shouted, trying to shield his eyes from the stinging tears of the clouds above as he ran into the largest alley between containers, bringing up the rear. "How do we even fight a storm?"

"Anomalies are like hurricanes!" Rosa responded, her two ponytails wrapping around her in the wind. She pulled her hat's brim lower over her face. "In Unova, we have the Forces of Nature that do things like this. There's got to be an Anomaly that's bringing all these clouds together with its aura!"

"Like a big dragon?"

Rosa turned to look at him and grinned, even with so many liters of water throwing her around. "Exactly! And it's got to be in the ocean, because water is wet, and so is rain! It'll have to be in its element."

"Water isn't wet! It only makes other things wet," Shauna yelled back, gripping Serena's arm to keep the winds from sweeping either of them away. Naturally, Serena didn't need the help

"Heavy philosophy aside," Blanche sniped as he slipped to a stop upon arriving at the ship's edge, "That's probably right. I didn't see anything in the air before it started raining, so it's likely something in… there."

The water was pitch-black, even darker than the storm clouds. Thunder cracked as it was lit up by a strike of lightning, illuminating the water if even for a second. It was clear, almost entirely empty as if something had scared all the Water-types away.

Thump.

Blanche felt a chill go down his spine, and it wasn't because of the cold. "What's ocean depth here again?"

"We're nearing Kalos, but there is a sandbar as well," Serena recited. "Depth is fifty meters."

Thump.

Rosa scratched her head. "How much is that in Unovan?"

Blanche silently tapped his chest with his fist. American self-centeredness represent, he called mentally. With his voice, he said, "About one hundred fifty feet, maybe a little more."

Thump.

"Oh, I don't know any Dragon-types that big," Rosa sighed, clearly disappointed. She then immediately started coughing the water out of her lungs. Talking is not a free action, not even to the weather, so it would seem.

"Anomalies can be… well, anomalous in size, can't they?" Blanche asked them all with a measure of dread.

Thump.

"Uh, duh," Shauna said, so helpfully that he could tell it was the intention. Definitely. "Bigger means stronger and Anomalies are strong. Shouldn't you know this?"

"Anomaly just means weird as far as I know, okay? Screw off."

Thump.

From the sea of ink, a deep blue fin cut into the wake out on the choppy horizon, peaking out just above the water. It rose and fell methodically, surfacing every few dozen feet or so.

They had not noticed, however, as Shauna felt that renewing her enmity with Blanche was a better use of time. And to be completely fair, so had he. "What did you just say to me? Shut up or I'll… I'll…"

Thump.

"Take your time."

"Shut up! I'll kiss you if you keep talking! I mean it!" Her tone made it clear that it was a threat for sure.

"Agh, my worst fear," he said, laying the sarcasm on thick.

Why was she even thinking about that at a time like this? It would have been strange at any time, actually. Must have been stress or her getting the streams crossed by thinking about Serena or something.

Thump.

Rosa seemed to marvel at how the "main" FLARE Rangers interacted with each other, Tencent standing regally next to her and ignoring the wind. Serena kept her eyes on the water, though had said nothing yet.

The singular fin in the waves swept from side to side, pushing the water aside and creating an arc the width of a highway.

"There," Serena said, cutting across the developing argument. She pointed out through the sleet-like rain and into the dim ocean.

"What?" Blanche looked, shielding his eyes. All he could see was the water crashing into itself and the side of the ship. Out in the distance, his eyes traced a single uninterrupted wake that cut parallel to the ship.

"That's… no, the current wouldn't push the water like that."

Thump.

He finally saw the fin as it swept halfway through an arc, before stopping suddenly. Far as he was, it seemed like a pin, the side of something much larger.

The fin rose as it approached, growing taller and taller. It wasn't a Sharpedo, he could tell that much.

The fin stretched to what had to be at least twice his height, as a scaly head appeared, adorned with a golden star on its nose.

"That's a submarine," he said weakly. "Tell me that's a submarine. Call it the artificial Sharpedo, Pokévangelion, I don't care, but let that not be exactly what I think it is."

Thump.

It rose further from the water as it approached the sandbar, waves cresting and being pushed away as the Anomaly's two-story head rose into the air, already as high as the deck of the ship. Its eyes were covered in a thin black film, the gold of its irises dulled to wispy bronze.

THUMP.

Its torso, centered with a fleshy red and surrounded by purple scales, seemed to go on and on forever as it stretched higher into the air. Small tsunamis were blasted into the wind as it raised its arms, fins longer than buses winging from the spires that could be called its claws.

THUMP.

It leered above the ship from another few of its paces away, standing twice the depth of the ocean, higher than even the tallest loading crane.

"...That's no submarine," Shauna stuttered, jaw hanging low.

Rosa shouted with glee, "It's a Garchomp!"

Indeed, it seemed more like a cross between that and Sharpedo, though it stood at dozens of times the height. The Anomaly took another step, creating a gale by simply swiveling its head. It seemed to be sniffing the air.

It suddenly turned and looked straight at them, angling its nose down from the stormy heavens.

Blanche sighed, accepting that it was a good run. He turned to Shauna.

"Sorry that we couldn't get along. It's too late to apologize in depth. In summary, we're f-"

Rosa spread her arms, the rain trailing down her face like the water of baptism. "This is what I've been waiting for!"

Tencent barked, the hexagons on its skin shimmering in reversed colors.

"Oh, right." Blanche blinked the water out of his eyes. "Everyone here is crazy."

THUMP.

"Shit, shit, shit; Okay, Dragon-Ground-Type. Railgun?"

"With what generator?" Shauna asked, literally the person who knew the best. "And in these conditions?"

"Can't you use Call Lightning or something?"

"That's not even a move!"

THUMP.

Blanche shook his head, muttering as Rosa got more and more pumped up for some inane reason. "Right, right. Shit, Serena can't mess with the sand from this far away. Probably." He looked over to her hopefully.

"No, you were correct. My range is not infinite."

THUMP.

"Shit! Okay, you know what? I'll think about it in a minute." He ripped the morpher from its holster on his belt, idly noting to replace it after the rain finished ruining it.

"FLARE Rangers-"

"Who put you in charge?"

"Agh! Just… transformation sequence go! Access Clemontic Gear: DIVE!"


AIAM FIELD PATTERN: GREEN

Designation: CGI

Artificial Teleport Request Inbound

FLARE Designation: Geranium

AIAM FIELD PATTERN: BLUE

Designation: CGI DIVE

Artificial Teleport Request Inbound

FLARE Designation: Amaranth

AIAM FIELD PATTERN: GREEN

Designation: CGI

Artificial Teleport Request Inbound

FLARE Designation: Rue

AIAM FIELD PATTERN: GREEN

Designation: CGI

Artificial Teleport Request Inbound

FLARE Designation: Dahlia

The words flashed away as they piled up on the small monitor. The lights above them did the same, cloaking the mess hall in darkness as the storm, no, hurricane raged.

Multiple stable power batteries were hooked up to Michael's laptop, along with a variety of devices necessary to connect to LADY back at base.

"I'm glad I made an investment," Michael thought aloud.

"All approved!" Aveline stumbled to put on a headset. "Send them through!"

Clemont sagged as he didn't get to slam a big red button. That was for major transformation sequences, as the older Professor had informed him.

Juniper bit her thumb as the ship rocked slightly. "Are you sure your Espers can handle it? Big fish in a small pond."

Sycamore waved his hand in a so-so gesture. "I'm sure they can handle it. It might be a big Anomaly, but I believe in them."

"I'm not talking about the Anomaly, I'm talking about Rosa. The craziest thing she fought in Unova was one of the Forces of Nature, and the Swords of Justice took care of most of that. I hadn't heard of a Honedge allying with them before, though."

"You think she'll hold back?"

Juniper shuddered, hugging her lab coat. "I don't think she'll remember how. Your team really had an impact on her."

"Really?"

"She talks a lot about Pinky being her favorite one, even if she's a little thin."

Sycamore, being a mature adult, took very little time to connect the dots without an ounce of humor. It was the realization that came afterward that sent him to the floor laughing.


The empty space between his head and chest was covered, completely sealing away what little hair stuck out, his suit becoming airtight. His back was suddenly weighed down, the sound of a vacuum compressing the air and turning it into oxygen buzzing in his ears. Rugged ribs appeared on his neck like gills that blew out when he breathed.

Blanche then prayed, for that just one minute, he'd be given the clarity of mind to think of a battle plan.

The pounding rain, alarms roaring across the sea, Rosa's happy squirming, his transformation and the earth-shaking steps of the massive Anomaly didn't give him the chance.

Lightning cracked behind Garchomp, silhouetting it like it was a cliff-hanger shot. But it wasn't, meaning he wouldn't get the break in-between episodes to think.
I'm thinking in TV terms again, he realized. Well, I can't exactly lose my mind more than I already have.

"Shauna, can you ride on electromagnetic waves yet?"

"I can bend them, obviously," she replied as if she was explaining that to an idiot.

"Okay, so bend them under you and you'll fly. There's a lot of static in the air right now." He had a feeling it'd be messing with his hair if he didn't have a helmet. His vision turned to Michael's webcam. "Hey, send me a stack of coins. Spare change, pennies, whatever. I saw this on TV once."

Clemont had to have a big red button snatched away by Michael, but the five below-deck operatives pooled a handful of Pokédollar coins and sent them to Blanche in a flash of light.

He held half the pile out to Shauna with one hand, tapping his neck where the armor's storage compartment was. He still had that and his exoskeleton, but most of the suit had been streamlined into a wetsuit.

"Hold onto these. Make your own railguns and shoot the Big Freaking Garchomp. It's like," he paused for a split second to think, "Rolling the fields of electricity into themselves to make a magnetic force that repels them forward."

He couldn't see her expression, given the visor, but she didn't protest and slipped the coins into the cylindrical pocket and stumbled, before rising into the air with a wobble.

He quickly turned to Serena as the Anomaly grew closer, halfway to the most distant barge.

"Serena, is there any earth in range?"

"I…"

She closed her eyes in thought for a precious few seconds.

"I can't sense it well. It feels watered down. If I knew where it was, I could control it."

"Listen, the Anomaly has definitely kicked up tons of sand, please try to pull some up."

"Alright. Thank you, Calem."

He ignored that last bit. It really wasn't the time to stress her out. Though for some strange, certainly not cowardly reason, he never found the time.

He turned to Rosa and Tencent, again trying to focus on his thought process.

Rosa bounced on her heels again, covered in lime green spandex patterned with black hexagons, even the visor. Whoever had designed her suit was clearly going for a theme.

"How do your AIAM fields work again? You share them?"

"Well, more like they're linked," she said cheerily as a flash of light roared across the sky, and a tiny bead of metal dug into Garchomp's scales. "If I get stronger, Tencent gets stronger too. We're partners, y'know? If he gets hurt though, I do too."

"So, he's your Stand."

Rosa tilted her head, the sound of the helmet clanking lost in the roaring winds. "He's what?"

Blanche sighed, causing a burst of air from his gills, and shook his head. "Forget about it."

What would work? Tencent may have been part of Zygarde, but it wasn't anywhere big enough to fight a hundred-meter tall Pokémon.

She seemed to notice his silence but only seemed to get happier. "You're thinking of a plan, right? You're an expert tactician, so I know you've got it figured out!"

His thought process ground to a halt for as long as he could afford. "Eh?"

"I've seen in the footage that you're always calling the movements, even if your voice gets kinda squeaky sometimes," ouch, "So I know that what you say is the best move!"

How is this girl my age but so oblivious? Is it her Ability or something? She has way too much faith in me.

Wait, faith. Faith. Faith! That was it! Espers got stronger when they wanted something more, via the power of friendship or whatever. That was the key he needed.

He looked at Rosa, pointed at the Garchomp as Shauna avoided its massive swinging claw. She was doing a good job so far, channeling the lightning into herself and redirecting it into railguns.

"Rosa, hit that thing very, very hard. I believe in you and your partner."

She squeed, that admiration she had in their FLARE contingent clear. "Really?" Her aura visibly flared up, the air around her shimmering with scales.

"Yep," he said, even if it wasn't complete. He'd only just met her, after all. "And if you can't believe in yourself, believe in the me who believes in you."

Rosa raised a salute near the speed of sound. "Sir yes sir!"

"Now!" He raised a fist skyward, brushing off the feeling of ridiculousness. "Go hit the problem as hard as you can!"

"Alright!" Rosa cried as she and Tencent ran straight over the ship's edge.

Over the ship's edge.

Blanche reached out just as they disappeared from his vision. "Wait, you idiot-"

A tiny blue and red thread appeared next to him, stretching across the ship as far as he could see and likely wrapping around the opposite side. It did this many more times, almost faster than he could follow.

In the periphery of his UI, he realized that Rosa had never hit the water.

A sea serpent arose from the sea of ink, glistening with saltwater and its green scales shining like stars. From a haze of aura, Blanche was thrown to the side as the tail swirled into existence from the tiny thread.

It continued onwards, wrapping around the entire ship. The serpent, he realized, was Zygarde. Or at least, one of them.

At the peak of its fan-like skull, reaching as high as Garchomp's, Rosa stood defiantly against the wind, looking down at him. He was a speck from her perspective, but he was the only speck that was bright pink.

"Coming, leader?" She asked, not teasing but clearly burning with excitement.

I'm dead if I fall from that high, artificial aura or not, he noted but ignored. The fact that a freakin' reskinned copy of Jörmungandr had just popped up to protect the main ship made it seem more like a lucid dream than an average Tuesday.

"You better not be flirting, Mummy!" Shauna yelled as she narrowly dodged another swipe.

"I am controlling sand currents to counteract the waves in order to protect the other ships," Serena added, likely to change the subject. "Do what you must, Amaranth."

She only messes the name up when I'm right there, he acknowledged as a plus.

"Right. But uh, how do I do that?"

Tencent's entire body (Aura projection?) slid backward, its head descending further towards the water, and its tail rising between it and the Anomaly. The damn serpent had to be a mile long at least, even as it was thick as a shipping container.

Rosa offered a hand to him, only a few feet from the edge of the boat and on his eye level.

Blanche took a deep breath, fought against the crooked grin trying to force itself onto his face, and got a running start for the leap.

The barge shook violently, and he nearly plunged into the inky sea, before Rosa's glove latched onto his and pulled him up. Every one of Tencent's scales felt like a massive foothold on a climbing wall as he scrambled for the top.

Tencent's tail whipped out as he got to his feet, snapping across the Anomaly's jaw like a thunderclap. A tangible wave pushed droplets from his visor like a fierce wind, even more so than the gale forces.

Garchomp's cry cut through the rain like a flaming sword, even turning what water fell around its face to steam.

Blanche's stomach dropped to the seafloor as they ascended towards the clouds faster than he'd expected, mentally screaming about how the hell was he not being thrown off? It felt like his whole body was gravitating towards Tencent's wide skull and nothing else. Was that an effect of its AIAM field?

Somewhere to his right, a roar of lightning shot towards Garchomp's neck, a coin glittering in front of the charge and Shauna floating behind. The electricity sparking around her almost made it seem like she was shimmering.

"Nice shot, Rue," he said, saluting her without an ounce of irony. "Now all you need are some fairy wings." Okay, maybe there were a few pounds that time.

Something like a snarl came through Shauna's line. "Shut up!"

"I could call you Fairy Rue like you're a Magical Girl. Or Fairue. Fair Rue, my dear lady," he laughed.

The next bolt of lightning was particularly vicious.

"Ahem," he coughed. "How're you holding up, Geranium?"

"Much more sand is being kicked up, though the same is true for abnormal currents. I may not be able to hold this position for long."

Blanche pulled at his gloves as he recognized that was one of the longest sentences he'd heard out of her.

"Alright then. Let's finish this up and get these sailors safe to shore!"

"As shore-ly as the sun sets sooner than the stars!"

"Good pun, Dahlia. Anyway," He whipped out with a single finger against the gray storm, only slightly disappointed that Garchomp was probably glaring at Tencent and not him, "Remember to believe in yourself; HIT THE PROBLEM REALLY HARD!"

"YES SIR!"

Rosa shook a fist at the sky, shining with a light that could shatter even the most guarded of heavens.

The Legendary beneath their feet rose even further, unwrapping from the ship and causing it to lurch to the side.

The clouds that tried their damndest to block out the sun broke apart, a single pin-like gree arrow of light racing towards them. It landed right between him and Rosa, piercing through Tencent's skull.

"Oh my God!"

Rosa emitted a sound not dissimilar to a cackle. "I have a friend of a friend who's a big fan of this move!"

From around his feet, hundreds of arrows rose out of Tencent's scales, each burning brighter than the last. They raced into the air, back through the tiny hole that had been summoned in the sky.

"HEAVEN PIERCING…"

A low screech equalized across the sea as hundreds of Tencent's scales began shimmering with blue and red.

"THOUSAND ARROWS!"

Day broke.

Clouds were ripped to shreds and replaced by a night sky of light blue air and green comets.

In a wide arc that spanned miles, like the walls of a pipeline, a thousand arms of pointed light shot towards Garchomp.

The first arrow struck with the force of a missile, shoving Garchomp back a few inches and eliciting a mere grunt of pain.

But that was only the first.

Soon, the Anomaly was being thrown back through the water, shoving a wall of water that reached higher than the few clouds that remained.

It writhed and screeched, and Blanche could practically hear Tencent's battle cry.

BALANCE.

Steam billowed from the water as arrows continued to pierce through, small lights flashing off the sandbar and deep in the ocean.

The blue sky was entrenched in mist and fog, though the sun shone brighter than it did before.

A minute later, Shauna weakly dropped out of the sky and onto Tencent's head, before wrenching off her helmet and preparing to throw up over the side.

Tencent seemed to sense her intent, a light yip traveling from what he assumed was a terrifying set of teeth.

"Right," she grumbled, not even trying to stand as her knees wobbled.

She looked to Rosa, then to Blanche, then back at Rosa.

"What the hell was that?" She shouted. "Give some warning next time! I felt like I was playing one of Trevor's bullet games!"

Rosa rubbed the back of her helmet awkwardly. "Ehehehe… sorry? I got carried away."

Blanche was still somewhere between shock and awe. Even with all the crazy stuff he'd seen in the last few months, that still took the cake with absolute certainty

She clapped him on the shoulder with a force that probably would have dislocated it without the shielding. "It's all thanks to our leader, really!" She proclaimed with total confidence.

"Eh?" He said reflexively, nary an actual thought in his head.

"Eh?" Shauna asked, with much more depth of tone and bravado. "Since when is he our leader? Serena has seniority!"

"You're technically the newest," he said dully, also on reflex. What could he say? Arguing with Shauna came naturally to him, it was a talent.

"I didn't ask you!"

Blanche decided that was a good time to take a seat, and clattered to Tencent's scales weakly.

Serena appeared in his periphery, rising on a shifty column of sand and gravel, just barely stepping onto Tencent's head as it collapsed.

His gaze remained locked on the Anomaly's body, the massive eyes swimming with black spirals.

"Man… My question is, what is FLARE gonna do about that thing?"

"Most Anomalies are rehabilitated and released into the wild," Serena said in the nick of time.

"Really?" He looked back at her with a confused head-tilt, before looking back at the unconscious Garchomp. "I didn't think there was a place on Earth that thing could fit."

"Hmph," Shauna said, fluffing out her soaked hair. "At least it's a nice day to go swimming."

The four Rangers looked out at the ocean for quite a while after that, just above the dissipating mist. The sun was in the lower half of its cycle, and its light granted them an until-then unrivaled brightness.

Rosa tapped her wrist, though her costume didn't have a watch on it.

"Tencent should be cooling down about now," she said simply.

Blanche dully looked back at her as the expanse of scales beneath them began dissolving. He didn't say anything, only sighing and looking at Shauna, who was in the opening stages of panic.

"Welcome to my world."

Swish.

Plop. Plop.

Rosa shouted, "Cannonball!"

Fwoosh.

Tencent's smaller form emerged from the aura of the massive dissolving head, dropping to the ocean with a happy bark.

Blanche did a dead man's float as Rosa and Serena's helmets dissolved into light, keeping the splash of water out of their faces. Shauna, somehow still unprepared for the impromptu dive, spat out seawater.

"You're not affected in the slightest, are you?" She complained.

"Want to have a wet t-shirt contest?" He deadpanned. "Spoiler alert: I beat you."

As she screeched something about him being a pervert, so continued an average day in the insane world of Pokémon. What was left of it, at least.