A/N: Hey y'all, Sprout here with a new chapter. We get to meet Milo this time around! Also, DAMN, the exposition in Sword and Shield is really just all there before gym one, huh? Regardless, I made a couple lore changes, or rather, lore clarifications below. Hope you like them!
The sun was starting to dip even further toward the horizon as Victor and I slowly descended through the wheat fields. As we found ourselves closer to Turffield, we started to see more and more gym leaders out in the fields. We saw some battles play out, saw some Pokéballs thrown, and even a couple rare Pokémon skirting through the fields, but mostly we just saw wheat. We walked quickly, eager to get to the Pokémon Center to heal up our teams and weren't paying too much attention to where we were going, so I couldn't hear the commotion coming up behind us.
"Look out!" shouted a loud voice. I turned just in time to see a white ball of fluff hop into the air before it pushed hard into my stomach, knocking me back into Victor. We crumpled like bowling pins, and the bowling ball itself rolled just a few feet further, slamming into a stone wall at the edge of the path, where it bleated, dazed from the collision.
"Are you alright?" said the voice. I snapped to my senses just in time to see a tall white man standing above me, smiling nervously. He wore a white shirt, a large set of green work overalls, and a large straw hat that blocked out the sun. Underneath the hat I could see a messy patch of red hair and a boyish face that at first glance looked like a nice tan but upon closer inspection revealed themselves to be a very thick set of freckles. The man took a knee and raised his arm out to help me up, which I happily took.
"I'm—I'm fine, just a little surprised is all," I muttered, pulling myself up and dusting myself off. As the man moved over to Victor, I finally recognized him. "Wait a minute, are you Milo? The gym leader?"
He laughed brightly. "Yeah, that's me. Be honest, was it the overalls that gave it away? One of the challengers today said I looked like a Sunflora, and that it was very 'thematically appropriate,' whatever that means. You okay, too?"
"I'm fine, thanks," Victor said as Milo helped him up. "But what are you doing out here? Aren't you supposed to be the gym leader?"
"Oh, you'll find that we in Turffield don't run at the same pace as you city folk. I'm taking a break before a couple evening battles. You two challengers as well?"
"Yeah," I said. "Evening battles? How many battles do you have a day?"
"Oh, it's always like this," he said happily. "Eight gyms but a few hundred trainers? I've got a busy week ahead of me and that's before I can start facing any trainers with more than one badge! Doesn't help that I'm the lowest seed and I specialize in a type people think is weak, of course, but I try to prove them all wrong in my own special way. Oh, but what am I even talking about. What are your names?"
I smiled. He had a very simple charm to him, as if he'd almost prefer lounging in the sun than battling Pokémon. "I'm Gloria," I said.
"Victor."
"Hm. You wouldn't happen to be Gloria and Victor Dixon, would you?"
"Uh, yeah, why?"
"You are? Smashing! I was wondering when I'd finally meet the other one of the trainers Leon endorsed! You've been causing quite a stir among the gym leaders, you know."
"Other?" I asked. "You saw Hop already?"
"Hey, I am the Wooloo Wrangler," he said proudly. "You think I would just let one of mine run around unsupervised?"
"Gloria! Victor! Wooloo!" came a cry from the direction Milo came from, and sure enough, Hop came bounding down the hill. Wooloo snapped out of his confusion, gave a happy bleat to us and rolled back up to meet his trainer. "Whoo! Glad you're okay, buddy. Thanks for helping him stop, Milo."
"Don't thank me, thank your roadblock friends," he snickered warmly. "Hey, I gotta get back to the stadium. If you're headed down, why don't you walk with me?"
"Sounds great!" Hop said. "How was your guys' time on the path? Did you have a good time in the mines?"
"Now…now's not a great time to talk about that," Victor said, frowning slightly.
"Everything okay?" Milo asked.
"Y—yeah, for the most part," Victor said.
"We had a really rough double battle and lost pretty badly," I explained.
"A double battle? I thought Leon said you three just started training! Already pushing yourselves to the max. I'm starting to see what Leon saw in you."
"He probably wouldn't have endorsed us if he saw that," I said morosely. "The two of us were only fighting one trainer!"
"Hey, whoever said two heads are better than one wasn't talking about double battles," Milo said. "You have to be super in sync with your partners and your battle mates if you want to have success in that. I never got the hang of it myself. You know, I did my challenge with Leon and Raihan as well? I could never hold a candle to 'em all season but look at me now. Eighth ranked gym leader. Not as glamorous or anything, but I think I did okay."
"Really? I don't remember Lee ever talking about you!" Hop said, shocked.
"Ah, I wouldn't expect him to," Milo laughed. "We weren't rivals or anything. Leon was a machine; he probably battled every single trainer on the challenge three or four times that year. Raihan, too. Point I'm making is that you're probably going to have a few really bad losses, but as long as you learn from 'em, you'll eventually come out on top."
"Who'd you even battle, anyway?" asked Hop.
"That Bede kid," I grumbled.
"Him? He's the first-ranked challenger, right?" Milo asked. "I can't say I'm surprised. He was one of my first matches this morning. Totally wiped my team, caught me completely off-guard. He seems a little full of himself, but that ego is definitely borne from a lot of skill. I imagine you'll see him a few more times before your challenge is up."
"I'm looking forward to it," I said darkly.
"Hey now," Milo said with a stern look. "It's real easy to let a bad day get you down. Pokémon battles are supposed to be exciting and fun! You get hung up on losses and you'll burn out quicker than a Heatmor in a Hurricane."
"R…right," I agreed.
"Right," he replied, brightening back up and clapping me firmly on the shoulder. "Here we are at the Pokémon Center! I imagine you'll want to refresh your teams a little bit?"
"Yeah," Victor said.
"Great. Come down and register quick as you can. I may be booked solid til the end of the week; the way you challengers are swarming to Turffield. Shoot, I'm running late, see you all! I can't wait for our battles!" He rushed off, hand on his hat so it wouldn't blow away.
"Oh, I see you met Milo!" Sonia exclaimed. She had just walked out the doors of the Pokémon Center and gave us each a smile. "He's great, not a single man in Galar sweeter than him. You book your time for your gym battles yet?"
"Victor and I need to get our Pokémon some rest," I said.
Hop walked around us, making to follow Milo to the stadium. "I can go now. I'll see if I can't sign you up alongside me!"
"That's not a thing you can—and he's gone," Sonia said, rolling her eyes. "Well once you two get nice and rested, why don't you come and meet me outside the city? I want to show you something and run some ideas by you about my research." She waved happily and trotted down the path toward a giant hill. Her Yamper burst through the door after her and gave chase, barking playfully, but I didn't even notice that. Instead, I was focusing on the giant hill behind the town.
"Victor, did you notice that when we were walking down?"
"Notice what—whoa." There was a small line of trees covering it, but there was an unmistakable drawing carved into the hillside, surrounded by a long pattern of strange symbols. Victor, finally out of his post-loss humdrums, yelped excitedly. "Gloria! That hill! That's part of the Dynamax Turfs! Oh, wow, I knew they were close by, but I didn't know they were literally right there!"
"This more of your nerdy tourist stuff?" I asked, eyes narrowing.
"Of course, I'm so dumb, the town is called Turffield. Turf…field. This has to be what Sonia was talking about, let's go!"
"Victor!"
"What?"
"Our Pokémon?"
"Right!" he said, and quickly turned back towards the Pokémon Center.
As our Pokémon all rested, we rushed down to find that Hop had finally gotten a spot for tomorrow morning in the 11:00 block of battles. The line for registration was much shorter now, and we managed to snag two slots in the 12:00 block in the coming morning. Content with our battle schedule, Victor and I rushed out to the outer streets while Hop stayed back to get us a room at the Pokémon Center ("I've seen those things a billion times, they lose their mystery after you've seen 'em once," he had said, much to Victor's chagrin).
Sonia was playing a game of fetch with her Yamper, tossing his Pokéball and having him retrieve it by the time we finally came up to meet her. "Glad you finally made it. They're a lot easier to see in the day than the night." She then returned Yamper, dropped his Pokéball in her small black purse and beckoned us to follow to the top of a small hill located at the center of mysterious stones. One of the stones suddenly moved to get out of the way, spooking her until she realized that it was only a Stonjourner, likely one employed by the Turffield Parks Department to keep unruly vandals at bay.
"How's Butterfree treating you, Vic?" she asked.
"F-fine," Victor sputtered. "We had a pretty rough battle though and both our teams got pretty injured."
"Ah, that's alright," she reassured, "I had trouble keeping all my battles straight myself. No shame in loving Pokémon for reasons other than battling. But I do want to ask you a favor about the Butterfree if you don't mind. It's an awkward ask, but I assure you it will not hurt them."
"O-of course, as long as Butterfree is okay,"
"Brill," she said. "I'll fill you in on the details tonight. But first…this!"
Victor was right, this was about the giant drawings. Cast across six resplendent green hills were five individual drawings, ornately carved and stylized. "Drawings" perhaps wasn't the right word, as instead the pictures were created by very small mounds of dirt that the grass had grown over. From up close, it seemed like they wouldn't be anything special, but from far away, I could make out each of them. Each shape represented a different creature. The first two, closest to us, looked like wolves. One of them sported a long stripe down its side, as if it had the markings of a Linoone. The second wolf had an impressive looking mane, looking like the majestic Pyroar found in the Kalos region. The third was more humanoid in shape with long, flowing hair and a strange circle on its belly, but it had a snout, like a bear. This figure was kneeling, its arms outstretched over a small series of figures. These figures were also humanoid in shape, but did not have any deciding characteristics, but now that I was looking at the feet of the giant Pokémon images, I could see that these strange figures actually covered five of the six images. At the far end stood the other giant Pokemon. While I could guess what the other ones looked like, the longer I looked at this figure, the more I could not quite figure out. It had tall and slender legs, but the rest of its body was tiny. There were long things extending from its shoulders, looking like flames or vines but not clear enough to discern. And finally, completely dwarfing all five other Pokémon, and on the biggest patch of turf, was a gigantic star, surrounded by the shape of clouds. Each of the five Pokémon stood facing it, as if they were watching it warily. In the glow of the setting sun, the mounds created long shadows, making the shapes look like they were painted on the grass with black paint. I couldn't quite explain it, but in the fading light, the grass almost seemed to take on a reddish tint.
"Wow…" I said under my breath. It was all I could squeak out.
"I know, right?" Sonia chimed. "This was my favorite stop on my gym challenge. There's something so mysterious and majestic about these mounds. You know much about 'em?"
"It's…it's a symbolic reference to the Darkest Day," Victor said, his voice trembling. "I think I remember reading that the star and clouds represents the darkness of the clouds, and each of the Pokémon are attacking. They think those three are ancient representations of Linoone, Pyroar, and Ursaring. But that doesn't make any sense. Outside of Linoone, none of those Pokémon are native to Galar. And even then, it looks more like the Linoone more commonly seen around the Hoenn region."
"Very astute," Sonia beamed. "You're a right encyclopedia, you are! I'll have to keep you around for my research!" Victor blushed and turned his head away awkwardly.
"What about that other Pokémon?" I asked. "I've never seen a Pokémon like that before."
Sonia sighed. "We're…not sure, to be honest. It doesn't really look like any Pokémon native to the Galar region at any rate, but our best guess is that it is an ancient Pokémon that's long since gone extinct. Pokémon do change their appearance over time, of course, so it could be a species that's still around, but we don't have many references that quite look like…that."
"Isn't there a theory that that's the hero of legend?" Victor asked.
"Well, yeah, but…"
"But it doesn't look anything like a knight or a soldier. He doesn't have a sword or a shield or anything," I said, tilting my head to see if I could see it from a different angle.
"Exactly," Sonia agreed. "We've dated these fields back about five thousand years, which would mean they were…well, for lack of a better word, drawn not too long after our best guess of the events that inspired the myth of the Darkest Day, but if human memory is anything like my own memory, I wouldn't be surprised if they got some details wrong."
"What does this have to do with your research, Sonia?"
"Well, I need to know about the Darkest Day, don't I? Any account is good information, no matter how poorly drawn it is. Anyway, you see those nonsense symbols around each of the pictures?"
I nodded. "Those strange little squiggly things?" I asked. "It's funny, they almost look like..."
"Letters?" Victor concluded. His eyes widened with excitement
"Right-o," Sonia said. "You know if battling doesn't work out for you two, Gran and I could really use some sharp minds like yours in the lab. These look like ancient Galarian Runes, so I'm jotting them down in my notebook."
"But they—no," Victor mumbled.
"But they what?" Sonia asked.
"They don't all look like Galarian runes," Victor said hesitantly. "S-some of them do, and I r-recognize those, but others, like that one there? They aren't the same."
"Since when did you know about ancient Galarian runes?" I asked, bewildered.
Sonia's eyes were almost as large as the shades sitting atop her fiery head. "And can you tell me where you learned about them, because I am in way over my head; linguistics is not my specialization."
"W-well, don't, like, take my word for it or anything, I just like to read about these things," Victor chuckled. "B-but there was never a fully completed alphabet of runes? At least, not like the current letters we use today. There's a bunch of these that don't...well, I can't explain it, but they don't fit."
"So…these aren't runes?" I asked.
"No! Not at all!" Victor said, gaining a bit of confidence now that he had our utmost attention. "They're definitely runes, I'm almost certain. They're, like, the same size and everything, you know? But they're so…different. See, they changed as we did over the past few millennia, and some of these older runes were replaced or just dropped entirely."
"Right, five thousand years is a long time," Sonia said, nodding along. "So, I'll have to find out a much earlier form of scriptwriting. Thanks for that."
"Not necessarily," Victor corrected. "Some of these runes aren't even runes at all; they're just letters we use in modern writing."
"But, Victor," Sonia stopped him. "They dated these mounds back five thousand years! That's when this was made."
"Where did they take the samples?"
"I…I don't know that. But if you're suggesting these were added to the hills years later, what would that even mean? What purpose would that even have?"
"I'unno," Victor said, shrugging. "S-sorry, Sonia. I probably just made this so much harder for you."
Sonia nodded solemnly in agreement. "You absolutely did. Thank you so much! Ah, I could just squeeze you like a pimple, you smart little man!" She grabbed him by the neck and squeezed. I couldn't tell if his red face was from a blush or lack of air in his lungs, but she quickly let go of him. "Victor, this is an incredible find. I need to get Macro Cosmos on the line and confirm a few things. Tell you what, desserts on me after you three finish your gym battle. You got a spot in the queue, right? Of course, you did, Ah! This is so exciting! I'll see you tomorrow! Good luck with your gym battles! Oh, and Victor. When is your battle tomorrow?"
"N-noon?"
"Oh, thank Celebi, I was gonna cry if I had to get up early. I'll meet you at the Pokémon Center and we can talk about Butterfree." Sonia waved one last time and bolted like she was performing a Quick Attack, leaving the two of us staring at each other, alone.
"Well, damn, Victor. You not only held an entire conversation with Sonia, but you have also forever altered her course of work. I'm impressed."
"My brain is boiling," he said shakily, barely louder than a whisper.
"Come on buddy, let's get you to the Pokémon Center."
A/N: Hmmmm...a cover-up of sorts, it seems...I wonder...but mostly I wonder who's winning the battle next week because...
NEXT: THE FIRST GYM BATTLE