A/N: Dinner time! And I've got two new(ish) characters to introduce! Plus a little time to flesh out (and by that I mean actually give) Oleana's character!

Oleana led me through the streets of Hulbury quickly and silently, as if she was intimately familiar with them. The local population seemed familiar with her, although they could have also been put off by her completely neutral glare. I don't know how she managed to make a blank face look so unsettling, but it certainly seemed like a good trick to have up my sleeve.

"The Pokémon Center," she said, gesturing sharply to our right. Sure enough, the Pokémon Center was right there. Through the windows, I could see all sorts of trainers chatting. Eddie and Sam were sitting on a cushion talking lazily, and I noticed that Sam held a Nuzleaf in their arms. Seedot must have evolved!

"I'll be right back," I squeaked.

Oleana frowned. "You had better be."

I gulped and sped in as quickly as I could and walked up to the nearest Nurse to hand off my Pokéballs. The Nurse, with pink hair and a matching pink dress, smiled widely and took them in her arms, telling me to check back in an hour or so. I thanked her and sped back to the door.

"Gloria!" Damn. I had been spotted. Sam and Eddie had spotted me after all.

"Sorry, Sam, I guess I have an urgent meeting elsewhere. Got the badge, though!" I waved the water badge at them, and they grinned.

"I know! They had the live stream playing on the feed! You could have guessed that from all the stares you've been getting."

"What sta—oh. Oh my." I stopped what I was doing and got a chance to look around. Almost everyone in the room had stopped talking and was either looking at me or trying too hard to seem like they were not looking at me. There were some whispers and murmurs as well, as they checked their trainer rankings and compared their teams with mine.

"This is…this is a lot to unpack, but I really do have to get going," I said, gesturing back to Oleana, who was still standing outside the door, still as a statue.

"Waitasec," Eddie paused, looking toward her as well. "Is that the chairman's secretary? You have a meeting with her?"

"Uh, well, with the chairman himself, actually…" All the murmuring around us stopped and anyone who heard my words stopped and stared, before they all launched forward, shouting.

"Can you get his autograph?"

"Do you think if he shouts me out on his podcast, I can get a boost in rankings?"

"I beat Nessa and didn't lose a single Pokémon, why didn't I get a meeting with him?"

"Miss Dixon, I told you to hurry it up. We're running late as it is," Oleana's voice, calm but forceful, was loud enough to quiet almost everyone in the room. I turned around to see that she had walked in through the main doors and stood holding one open. Those who had come close to me all took a step back at the sight of her, and everyone who had something to say seemed a lot quieter now. She gave me a look and raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, creating just the slightest fold in skin that seemed to have never creased before, and I skittered out like a Lillipup with my tail between my legs.

Oleana let the door swing shut behind me and started walking again, but this time she walked beside instead of in front of me. Her expression had changed somewhat, and despite still maintaining a perfectly expressionless face, her eyes were glazed over as she chose her next words carefully.

"A word of advice, Miss Dixon." She spoke slower; more deliberately. Her tone seemed almost warmer somehow.

"Huh?"

"Many gym challengers have to deal with fame, and few are equipped to handle the fame they get and the fame they believe they should get. You have the unfortunate luck of being placed in the public eye immediately. I do not doubt they will be judging you a little more harshly because you were endorsed by Leon."

"That seems unfair," I said with a frown.

"It is," she agreed.

"So, is your advice to just ignore them and focus on me? Because that seems—"

"Far easier on paper than in practice? It is. My advice is this: prove them wrong. By all means. If you think you deserve their respect, you must show them that you deserve it. Do whatever it takes." I looked up at Oleana to see that she was looking intensely at me. The fog had cleared from her eyes, and they focused on me with a laser precision. I couldn't be sure, but her brow seemed ever so slightly furrowed near the center, as if she were holding back a look of concern.

"I don't know if I want their approval, or to prove them wrong, but—"

"Then don't, Though it would be a waste of your talent."

We walked on in silence. Oleana was clearly not the type to waste any thought on conversation unless it was utterly necessary, and I was thankful her sharp stare was no longer boring into my skull. After a few minutes, we came to the front doors of the restaurant.

"We have arrived. Please think on what I have said. Now, Mr. Legatum is at the far end of the table with his investors." I looked up and saw a sign reading, "The Captain's Table," next to a graphic of a very confident man with a grotesque smirk and a moustache that extended from his face in two spikes, like Mamoswine tusks. Oleana opened the door for me and ushered me in. I looked back at her and saw that she had once again adopted a blank expression.

Inside, the restaurant was completely empty, save for a couple waiters, a prep chef leaning on the door to the kitchen, and the guests of honor themselves. Rose had once again returned to his typical business-professional look, with a slick black suit and white shirt that probably cost more than the waiters' yearly salary. To his right and sitting with their backs to a large wall-size window that faced the ocean, were two blonde men also dressed in expensive looking suits. one a deep burgundy, and the other an elegant navy. The man in navy had his hair up in a fashionable pompadour that looked impossibly tall, while the man in burgundy's hair was more deliberately unkempt, feathered and wide, falling softly to his shoulders. Both looked incredibly bored, even more so than Oleana, as if they needed to prove just how bored they were with the dinner. Finally, at the other end of the table and (thankfully) next to the only open seats at the table was a young woman in a green sweater and with red hair just as wavy as ever.

"Sonia!" I cried, and quickly walked over to her. I could tell from the mix of surprise and relief in her reaction that she was also happy for someone she finally knew to show up at this dinner.

"Gloria! The chairman here was just showing us the battle you were having with Nessa! Bang-up job, as usual!" Rose hummed in agreement, pulling up a glass of white wine and taking a sip.

I looked over to Rose, who was beaming at me. "Oleana said you didn't want to be kept waiting, but Nessa said she had an opening immediately and we just…"

"Went for it?" Rose asked, swallowing his sip. "I wouldn't expect one of our hottest challengers of the season so far to give up a chance at a battle. Back up to 29, largely thanks to your ploy with Boltund. Is he here with you?"

"No, uh, she's healing up at the PC," I said.

"No matter! I'm sure I'll meet the whole team eventually!" he laughed. "It's no worry about the wait, we all had a wonderful time discussing the nitty-gritty of business. Luckily, you came just in time for dinner to not be boring anymore!"

This earned a disgruntled cough from the man in the burgundy suit. Rose laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm just fooling around, Gloria, I'd like you to meet Sir Edward and Sir Herbert Buckingham."

"Buckingham?" I asked. "As in the royal family of Galar?"

"Most certainly," said Herbert, the man in Burgundy haughtily.

"Wow, it's a real pleasure," I said excitedly, holding out my hand for a shake.

"Charmed, surely," Edward said, not lifting his hand and instead choosing to glare at it icily. "One of the trainers endorsed by the Champion. I'm sure you're enjoying your brief window of celebrity? You and your friend have certainly kept ratings up higher than usual this year."

"Well, I'm not sure exactly how I feel about it, but the challenge is fun!"

"And you didn't hear it from me, but even Leon has been training a bit harder than usual this year. He might be nervous about you and Hop," Rose said.

"Hop's certainly convinced he's going to carry on his legacy," I joked.

"And no doubt you're out to create your own legacy?" Herbert asked pointedly.

"I…I guess?" I shrugged. Truth be told, I hadn't thought much about anything like that, but considering what Oleana had just told me, it seemed I would have much more to worry about than I thought I would during this challenge.

"How quaint!" Edward cooed. "It's so fascinating to see someone pull themselves up from the dirt!"

"Truly," Herbert agreed. "There's something almost romantic about having to create a legacy for yourself rather than have it secured it your birth." He shot a look at both Sonia and me, who in turn exchanged a confused glance. Were they…were they mocking us for not being royals?

"I don't know about romance, you seem a bit old for me," I joked. Sonia chuckled alongside me, but it seemed to be more from nerves than from finding my joke funny.

"Bold of you to assume you would be considered for anything romantic with someone with less than a quarter our stature," Edward said hotly.

"Friends!" Rose interrupted. "I'm sure she meant it purely in jest. Gloria's the funny one, from what I hear. But back to our discussion—"

Edward rose from his seat and placed his napkin on the table. "Our discussion has reached its end, Mr. Legatum. Rest assured; we will maintain our investments in your Pokémon League and Project Eternamax. And, young Miss Magnolia, should your research become more fruitful, we would be happy to give you an additional loan, though I hardly think it necessary at this point."

"Are you not staying for dinner?" Rose asked as Sonia sank a few inches into the leather of her chair.

Herbert took one last swig from his wine glass. "Thank you for the wine. I had no idea a white could be so…dry. We have some other things to attend to, if you'll be so kind as to escort us back to the station."

"Er…naturally. Oleana," Rose gestured. Oleana nodded solemnly, understanding without any words between them. Suddenly, the chairman's phone buzzed and lit up. "Oh, and could you grab Victor and Hop from the gym as well? It looks like Hop has won his gym battle with Thwackey alone. He's showing quite the skill already."

Oleana nodded a second time and left with the two royals following closely behind. The second the door closed, Rose sighed loudly and called a couple waiters over. "Another glass of wine for me, and a menu for our new guest."

The waitstaff nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Rose loosened his tie a bit and ran his hand through his black hair. "I am…very sorry about those two. I'd say they aren't usually like that, but they are. The things you have to do and the people you have to please for funding, am I right?"

"Wouldn't it just be easier to use your own money? Aren't you one of the richest people in Galar?" I asked.

Rose laughed heartily, a bit too heartily. "You are the funny one, alright. Most of my money is tied up in the league or in other ventures with Macro Cosmos. I don't want to tell you all the details yet, but we've been doing a lot of work on a newer form of renewable energy. It's why I've recruited young Miss Magnolia here!"

"Please, Sonia is fine," Sonia said, twirling a strand of hair with her finger. "And he's right, Gloria. Money makes the world go 'round, after all. As much as I wish it didn't sometimes."

"Relax, Miss Mag—Sonia. Project Eternamax is very important to me, and I'm sure if absolutely necessary, I can have Macro Cosmos reallocate some funds for you. But let's scrap this business talk already, eh? Gloria, you don't want to listen to us talk about this all night! How was the battle?"

"I mean, you already saw it, didn't you? What's Project Eternamax?" I asked.

"A curious mind. If the league doesn't make you a star, the Magnolias might want to snap you up as a research assistant," Rose joked. "But as for Project Eternamax, there isn't much I can say about it as the fine details go. But I can, however, give you a bit of a rundown. Do you know how Macro Cosmos provides energy to Galar?"

I shrugged. "Coal?"

"Well, yes, but not entirely. Renewable energy is the wave of the future, and I deeply wish for Macro Cosmos to lead the way in new, innovative, and safe means of producing energy. In the past few years alone, we've been working alongside Professor Magnolia's lab and made some great discoveries about the properties of Dynamax Energy.

"On your wrist is a wishing star, yes? Well, wishing stars fall from the sky occasionally, but most are actually found underground. We dig up these stars and refine them in a way similar to the way we refine coal and use the stored Dynamax Energy inside the stars to create our power! It's cleaner than coal, and infinitely more efficient as well! My father figured this out, and with his implementations, we made it so that nearly 60% of all Galarian electricity is produced via refining wishing stars instead of coal!"

"But isn't that also a finite resource?" I asked.

"Exactly. Such an analytical mind! No wonder you've been doing so well in your battles! Yes, unfortunately, though there are still plenty of veins of wishing stars in our main mines, and plenty more we haven't yet found, it will eventually run dry. Most experts say this will be in about a thousand years. But here's the thing. Dynamax Energy itself exists and can be replicated, right? Why else would we have all those dens? Why else could we battle with Dynamaxed Pokémon?"

"Sonia told me about that, said something about the Darkest Day being the cause."

"So, you've probably put all the pieces together then already. Project Eternamax is a way to find out what caused Dynamax energy to first appear, and if there is a way to safely recreate it so that we no longer have to rely on mining at all! But that's about all I'm allowed to tell you before I have to pull out the NDAs, and that's a whole swamp I don't wish for you to get bogged down in."

"No worries," I said cheerily. "That's all I needed to know anyway, really. Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you then."

"We really do," Sonia said. "But we've got about a thousand years to figure it out, so it's not like we're in any rush, really."

"I'd still like it to get done as quickly as possible," Rose interjected with a smile. "After all, Macro Cosmos does believe in the power of maintaining Galar's natural beauty—"

"And it looks good for the shareholders, I get it," Sonia laughed.

"Precisely," Rose gleamed. "And on the topic of 'quickly as possible,' before the boys return and this all goes down to talk of battle strategies and whatnot, I'd like to know if you have any updates about your research, young miss Magnolia. That bit about the runes was some pretty clever sleuthing."

Sonia tensed up immediately. "Research is slow-going, Mr. Legatum, you know that. I don't expect we'll even get through the paperwork just to take some soil samples from the runes in Turffield, and I've straight up hit a wall with any research on the runes or language they'd translate too. I'm sorry, but it's only been a couple days. That's not even long enough to get anything done."

"Oh, I'm familiar with the stickiness of red tape," Rose muttered darkly. "But I also know that with a good set of scissors you can cut through all of it. I can talk to some people, see if we can't get some quick approval for you. In the meantime, the Galar Vault has some of the most comprehensive Galarian history preserved inside it. I'm sure they have plenty of history hidden away; it's got to be there!"

Sonia smiled apologetically. "Nothing published, I'm afraid. Or if there is, I haven't found it yet. There's thousands of pages and tomes and documents to sift through, and their website interface is atrocious. Looks like something Bill designed 25 years ago and no one bothered to update it."

"Couldn't you just…go to the vault and search for yourself?" Rose asked, crossing his arms. His usually calm demeanor was beginning to give in to frustration.

"I'd need to look at documents thousands of years old," Sonia said with a nervous laugh. "They'll never let me do that just willy-nilly. The oils in my hand could destroy one of those pages."

Rose leaned back and pondered, relaxing his shoulders and scratching his goatee for a couple seconds. I took a sip of water quietly. A waitress came to ask for our orders, but Rose waved her away without a word, and she left as quickly as she came in a huff. Sonia fingered the rim of her wine glass, still full of a dark red wine. She had yet to touch it the entire conversation, but the look in her eyes said she desperately wished she could down that glass and the rest of the bottle as well.

About a minute went by before Rose finally composed himself. He leaned forward and spoke with a flatter, more businesslike tone. "I admit that I have been quite eager, but you must understand, this project means a great deal to me and my investors, the brothers Buckingham. I will free up some personal funds and call in some favors for you to visit the Vault. Perhaps one of the experts there will have the information you and I are looking for. In the meanwhile, I do urge you to continue your research as quickly as possible."

"She just said that research is—ouch," I began hotly, only to be swiftly kicked at by Sonia from under the table. Her face, usually a soft shade of pink, was almost ghostly white.

"Of course, Mr. Legatum," Sonia said quietly.

"Excellent. Those are the words I love to hear," he replied.

"Gloria! Sonia?! We made it!" came a yelp from the entrance. The three of us snapped our heads over to see Hop and Victor standing triumphantly, each brandishing a water badge identical to mine. Oleana, not one to join in on the group pose, walked immediately over to Rose. Rose himself, as if flipping a switch, smiled warmly and beckoned the three over.

"Ah, excellent! I've kept an eye on your battles through this boring business talk," he boomed. "Hop, I cannot wait to see the replay of that Thwackey; it was almost as good as watching Leon himself battle. And Victor, I almost thought my app was glitching when it said you took down a Dynamaxed Dreadnaw with nothing but a Nuzleaf! Welcome to the top 200! You're one of the fastest rising trainers in the league right now! Not bad for someone Bede seemed to think was a bit of a weak battler. Good to see you're coming into your own!"

Both Hop and Victor smiled brilliantly, but I thought I could see each of their smiles falter just the slightest; Hop when Rose mentioned Leon, and Victor when Rose mentioned Bede. The three of them returned to their seats, but Oleana grabbed onto Rose's arm to whisper something into his ear.

"Vic, you beat her Dreadnaw with that Nuzleaf?" I asked, impressed.

Hop nodded. "I was watching the live feed and the comment section went bananas. It was a great battle, mate!"

"Thanks," Victor said, scratching the base of his neck sheepishly.

"Bet Nessa just loved that," Sonia snickered. "She's the most competitive girl I know, wish I could've seen her face when she lost three times in a row." She leaned back in her seat a little bit, only to immediately tense up again as Rose stepped back to us excitedly.

"A thousand pardons, but it seems I've got to cut and run. Seems we have been able to secure an eighth gym leader for you after all. I regret I couldn't stay to chat, but it's good to finally get some good news today. Feel free to order what you wish; it will all be on my personal tab. Ciao!" He waved to us all graciously, despite having shot a very pointed look at Sonia on the word "Finally," and disappeared through the entrance. I glanced at Sonia to get a read on her but couldn't quite figure out where her mind was at. She glared at the door with a mixture of frustration, embarrassment, and bitterness, before grabbing at her wine glass and downing its contents in one hefty swig.

"You okay?" I asked quietly. Hop and Victor paid no mind and had already buried their heads in the menu.

Sonia sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I'll be alright in a mo, this isn't the first nor the last time I've had to deal with that type. Sorry for kicking you, by the way."

"Totally fine," I offered. "But you shouldn't let him tell you how to do your job like that, doesn't matter how much money he has."

"Oh, Gloria," Sonia smiled, "have I got some bad news for you about how this world works. But no matter, we can at least get back at him a little bit by buying the most expensive things on this menu. Think I might be able to get a truckload of Feebas caviar for Gran? She's probably right peckish about now and she is a nightmare when she's hangry."

The two of us shared a laugh and looked to see just how expensive we could make our meals.

A/N: In case you didn't make the connection, say hello to this version's Sordward and Shielbert! I wanted to give them a bit more to do, and I already feel a little overwhelmed just retelling the main story, so I probably won't dip into the post-game or expansions any time soon. You'll also notice I changed their names because WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD NAME THEIR CHILDREN SORDWARD AND SHIELBERT, jesus (although I laughed REALLY hard when they showed up post-game, ngl)

Also I noticed that a few of these chapters have felt pretty "Eat the Rich." Now I'm not gonna make any grandiose political statements or anything, but when the villain of your game is a billionaire who does things for his own ego that end up nearly destroying the world around him, the story's gonna be a little left-leaning at times, is all I'm saying. Don't worry, it's all Pokemon goodness for at least the next ten or more chapters. So uh...yeah, eat the rich and leave me a nice review lol

NEXT WEEK: DEEPER IN THE MINES