To the reviewer who asked: This actually is the first chapter featuring the SI's 'Chain' name (the one he'll be referred to throughout the Chain, because using my 'real' name doesn't seem like a great idea), mostly because it's not really something that comes up in casual conversation, especially in this world. In Ruby and Sapphire, the Devon President doesn't even ask for your name when he asks you to deliver the Devon Goods with no supervision. Even if you are a good Samaritan who assists an employee in recovering valuable machinery, that doesn't happen in real, normal life. He does magically know your name in Emerald, but he makes no indication of knowing it in the first two Gen 3 Games (at least in the English translation), which influences this first-person writing style a lot. Riley, though… not only is the SI unsure if Aura can be used to determine if someone's lying, he's a little too important to potentially alienate because what, he prefers anonymity?
Also, as you can see below, this chapter rather got away from me, so the conversation with Evan will have to wait until next Chapter. Sounds like you've already figured out the basic outline of the talk, though, which to be fair isn't too hard to do. And as for Lugia, well, XD-001's purification might be a little more complicated than most Shadow Pokemon…
Pokemon: Hoenn; City Life50 (Fortree); Actual Starter: Eevee (Shiny50); Freerunning; Swarmed+100 (100)
Priority: Physical Fitness100; Survival Training100; Master Ball*3100; HM Collection50; Rebreather50; Psionics300; Savant600; Blend In300; Egg Move4 (Flail, Wish, Stored Power, Synchronoise)200; Combat Training100; Aura600 (2500)
-Day 2502-
Bright and early the next day, we dragged ourselves out of bed (and the outdoor shower setup outside), ate a hearty breakfast, slapped down the Swarm for the umpteenth time, and Evan Teleported us both to Canalave City in Sinnoh, where we could take a boat out to the seemingly-barren Iron Island. Not that the boat ride was 'necessary' per se, but it seemed only polite to use the closest thing the island had to a front door when you were looking for assistance in learning how to use something as esoteric as Aura.
And while Captain Eldritch was happy to ferry me over for a fair price (which didn't exactly matter to me anymore either way), I did run into someone interesting on the way over.
Keep in mind, the only five people who I knew could use Aura, were Ash and Sir Aaron from the Anime, Rui from Colosseum, Riley from the Anime/Games, and someone called 'Lily' according to the Bulbapedia page on Aura. Turns out, she was currently living on the island with Riley in Byron's currently-unused vacation home, and her brother 'Hiori' was taking the trip to see her every day to check on her. Apparently, as I vaguely recall the bulbapedia page stating, she'd been kidnapped by team Galactic at the beginning of the year (the midnight of New Year's, in fact) and while her brother raised hell through the underworld for a whole week to find her, he'd finally stumbled on a robin-hood archetype called Rocco invading a house belonging to a criminal… only to discover that it was already being invaded by his sister, hypnotised by a Mismagius into stealing Pokemon.
Then Riley showed up and Aura Purge'd her, which I was very happy to learn was a technique I could learn here. Apparently the day before, Iron Island had been invaded by a pack of Team Galactic Grunts who were testing out a machine that projected 'low frequency waves' that drove Steel-types berserk, and after he'd crushed them and turned them over to the police, he'd found out that Captain Eldritch's son had started suffering 'waking nightmares'. Specifically, he'd walked into his room and tried to use 'Aura Reading' to find the root of the problem, and stumbled on Darkrai calling for assistance from someone having 'finally' succeeded in sneaking onto Newmoon Island, before being abruptly cut off.
Convincing the sailor to prepare for a journey to check up on the Legendary, he'd walked into the Sun Sun bakery for lunch and been recognised by Nazuna (the owner's daughter, and apparently Hiori's girlfriend after he'd rescued her from a hostage situation during his week-long crusade) and begged him to help Hiori find his kidnapped sister. Calling him had gotten him an address right as he stumbled on Rocco's house invasion, and by the time he'd reached them through the gaggle of onlookers… well, he'd just dealt with the equivalent of mind control, so the dead look in the eyes of the girl attacking them tipped him off that they might be connected.
With Lily freed, Riley had left Hiori with her and rushed off to chase 'her' Dusknoir and Mismagius, who had grabbed their Pokeballs and bolted the moment he broke the Mismagius' Hypnosis. He tracked them all the way to a warehouse and lost them while fighting his way through half-a-dozen low-level Grunts. Apparently, the Admin 'Io' had already set out for Newmoon Island to capture Darkrai and 'enshroud the world in darkness', so he'd called the cops on them, raced back to the other three, and assigned Rocco to get Lily back to the bakery while Hiori joined him in chasing Io down before she caused a disaster. Apparently, Riley was very well-respected among Canalave's citizens and they heeded his orders.
Sailing to Newmoon Island, Riley and Hiori had discovered a nearly-unconscious Darkrai trapped in a veritable mountain of spiderwebbing, surrounded by a thoroughly-unconscious Ariados, Galvantula and Araquanid, and Io being guarded by a Porygon-Z and her Dusclops and Mismagius while she worked her way through a veritable mountain of Dusk Balls, Timer Balls, Fast Balls, Moon Balls (which she seemingly didn't know had nothing to do with Darkrai) and was almost down to a few Dream Balls. Suffice it to say, it only took Hiori's Lucario, Drifblim, Tangrowth, Lickililly and Gallade to stomp them into the dirt (his Mime Jr. paralysing Io so he could stomp her into the dirt for kidnapping, brainwashing and framing his little sister, something you wouldn't see in a Pokemon Game) while Riley freed and administered some Sitrus Berries and a Full Restore to Darkrai.
The conquering heroes had then returned with her in tow, only to find a ring of onlookers watching as three Galactic 'Recruiters' were dragged out of the Sun Sun by the local police. Turns out, they'd arrived at their warehouse before the police, helped their allies evacuate, and retargeted Lily so they could perfect some kind of 'Aura Cloak'. Fortunately, Rocco had a Magmortar, the owner had a Garchomp and Nazuna had a Leafeon, so the Executives' Electivire, Magnezone and Rampardos ended up stalemating with them… until Rocco pulled out his 'trump card' Gardevoir, at which point the police arrived due to the massive volume of reports from the rubberneckers and the kidnappers surrendered.
Seeing that Team Galactic were likely to try this again at some point, Riley had offered Lily a Riolu Egg and suggested she stay with him on Iron Island for a year or two, while he taught her the basics of Aura control and how to defend herself with it. Something she was apparently very eager to learn after her not-so-stellar week (and Hiori grumbled a bit about her dating Rocco, even if he 'only' stole from other criminals, and saved her from another kidnapping), and Riley sorted out a schedule with the good Captain so her brother could come and see her every day. Wholesome, I guess. Also, when she was told why Riley had showed up, Io inadvertently ranted about 'Charon picking the worst possible time to invade Iron Island' before she clammed up, which confirmed to the IPF that Charon was with Galactic, and that his 'hotel disappearance' two years ago was more than likely faked.
Honestly? It didn't really matter that much to me. I was still polite, mind you, no need to be a jerk over a very real crime and trauma that Lily suffered, but as I pointed out to Hiori, I'd been involved in shutting down Teams Magma and Aqua with some well-timed calls to the police, defeated Giovanni and his four Executives to prevent Team Rocket's revival (which I still didn't know for sure had been accomplished, but hey, we can live in hope), stopped Team Galactic when they made a problem the year before they kidnapped his sister (which would explain Iron Island: Dialga was 'said to be' Steel-typed), and now I was looking to deal with another revival, this time of Cipher over in the Orre Region.
…when you spell it out like that, I've been involved in stopping a lot of criminal extremists, haven't I?
"Sure thing. Hey, Riley! We got a newcomer!" Asking Hiori to go first and announce my presence seemed like a good, respectful idea.
"Oh?" He stepped away from where he was gently correcting a girl I presume to be Lily into a… martial arts stance, I think, and turned to me as she hugged her brother. "You are?"
"Jason Townsend." Not much point trying to fool an Aura Adept, and even if I could, I might need some help beyond his teachings. Thus, I gave him my 'Chain' name and shifted my eyes into the 'Aural' spectrum, cutting right to the point. "I heard you're a more experienced Aura Adept, and I could use some advice."
He wasn't completely stunned, though the other two seemed appropriately gobsmacked (seriously, Hiori didn't think to ask why I was there?). "I see. Can I assume that this 'advice' involves learning how to use your Aura?"
"Partly." I brought my hands in front of my chest and formed an Aura Sphere, my Savant-enhanced mind having broken down the immediate rules and limitations of Aura within the day I Discovered it. "I need one very specific technique, though I wouldn't mind a refresher, or to go over my basics and make sure I'm not making any mistakes without realising."
"…and that technique is?"
"One that can free someone, specifically a Legendary Pokemon, from corruptive influence and mind control." I laid the rest of my cards on the table. "Hiori suggested you could break a Mismagius' hypnotism on his sister, and the issue I'm facing is much more deeply-ingrained, but I'm hoping I can work around that over a long period of time."
"…Possibly." He hedged, clearly making his mind up. "Would you mind sitting down with me and explaining the situation a little more thoroughly?"
Assuming this happens the day I leave my Christmas family reunion just like all the other 'incidents'… "I have… around six-to-eight weeks to learn, sure."
"Hiori, Lily, you should probably join us for something this important." He waved me over to a four-chair dining table, where the other two were already sitting down at. "Are you certain about your 'timetable'?"
"My precognition hasn't led me wrong before, though it could very easily happen at a later date during the same year." I admitted, not entirely sure when XD was supposed to occur.
"…you're psychic as well?" He seemed a bit uncertain of that plot point, but I kinda needed to fib about specifically being able to see the future in order to justify my metaknowledge. "Aura Adepts are incredibly rare, I've never heard of one being psychic too."
I simply levitated a spoon out of the cutlery basket (people seriously use these?) to prove myself. "Awakened it about halfway through my second year as a Trainer. Doesn't work the same way other psychics seem to, I can't read minds or otherwise 'receive' messages from non-psychics, but I can send them and perform basic telekinesis. Aura was much more recent, and I was wondering if the two powers might be incompatible in some way to explain why I can't read minds. I'm guessing you don't know anything about the subject?"
"I'm afraid I can't help you with that, no. All I know about psychic powers is that they're supposed to manifest at a very young age, perhaps you're performing Aura manipulation in a near-identical fashion and developed a mental block that prevents you from realising it?"
"I don't think so, the gap between Understanding the two was multiple years long and my parents made me see a Doctor after my psychic powers awoke. But that's not really why I'm here." And here comes the bullshit. Let's pray he's not a living lie detector. "After I acquired my psychic abilities, I started having synaesthetic 'flashes' of Hoenn being either covered in a Primordial Sea to the mountaintops or reduced to a Desolate Land with no water. While I was looking into it, Teams Magma and Aqua started their nonsense, and I found myself always knowing when and where to be to thwart their plans. Then Giovanni came along, and my mind was enhanced in several Savant-esque ways, like enhanced spatial awareness, that made defenestrating all those Voltorb much easier. Then Galactic showed up, and I started seeing Evan's Aura." I promptly sent her out on the floor next to me, and broadcast a [Sorry, I know you hate the Ball.] that received an annoyed chuffing in response as she curled up on my shoes, and a shocked twitch from my audience. "It took me a while to master it, or as much as I think I've mastered it, but my perfect memory from Savant made it easy to break down what I was doing and how to do it better. Then I went to tour the Orre region, and at the end of my stay, I 'future-saw' some sort of mutated Lugia attacking a ship called the S.S. Libra with four Gyrocopters, one of which was guiding it somehow. By the time I'd grabbed all my stuff and prepared to Teleport back, I grabbed a newspaper on an old hunch and it 'flickered' to a later date in the first month of next year, saying that the ship had been carried off and the two crew who were sailing it had been lost at sea. And as soon as murder is involved, I draw the line at waiting for it to happen."
"Agreed." Riley nodded slowly, taking it all in. "How did you know I was currently living on Iron Island?"
"Mostly by guesswork and rumours." I shrugged. "I knew that the last time Cipher used Shadow Pokemon, they were stopped by a Team Snagem turncoat and a girl from Agate Village who could apparently identify them by 'seeing the shadowy aura' surrounding them. Even if she's not an Aura Adept of some kind, it still led me to search for other Aura Adepts and since Lucario are native to Sinnoh, it seemed like a good idea to start here. It's not much of a secret that you're believed to be a fully-trained Aura Adept, all I had to do then was walk around and focus on that. Once I got a vision of you… fighting some Team Galactic Grunts I think, from across the bay in Canalave, it seemed like a good idea to check the island itself. I mean, if you wanted to train in peace and seclusion, where better than an abandoned island mine?" I grinned. "And then I met Hiori on the way over and he couldn't stop bragging about how you'd both saved the world. You really should be a bit more careful who you blab that too, kid."
"Hey!" He squawked as an infuriated Lily bopped him on the head. "I'm sixteen! And I totally knew you were a good guy first!"
"No, you guessed that I was a good guy, and you got lucky enough that I am a good guy." I snorted. "You had no proof, and probably just assumed that you could take a five-time champion with superpowers. 'Assume' makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me', Hiori, and in this case, the only one getting smacked by your sister isn't me." Then I turned to her. "And Lily, there are plenty of ways to express your displeasure that don't involve physical assault. A little civility from the Aura Adept, please." She had the good grace to look chided.
"In any case," Riley interjected, amusement all over his face. "learning Aura Purge is typically very difficult, but if we have fifty days and you're abnormally good at controlling your Aura, I might be able to teach it to you by then. How, exactly, do you plan to disable this Lugia long enough to use it, especially if it's been turned evil?"
"As far as I'm aware, the Lugia either hasn't been caught in a Pokeball or has been altered to such a degree that the Pokeball it's registered to no longer recognises it." I asserted, hoping he wouldn't ask why I think that even though I had a backup for such a question. "I have a Master Ball, and if Evan Teleports me onto or slightly-above its back, I should be able to catch it before it can react. If that fails, I can at least Teleport the sailors to that Pokemon Lab in Orre and ask if I can borrow the Snag Machine they're working on."
"…and even if it fails, the Lugia will still be caught for a moment before the Master Ball determines that it's already been caught, and releases it in a stunned state." He mused. "How do you plan to get back down to the surface of the ship? Does Teleport nullify momentum?"
"Yeah, it took a while to get used to that particular quirk, but it does indeed nullify momentum. If Evan's strapped to my back, preferably after a bunch of stat boosts, we can always get out of danger or start firing off Stored Power's until it drops. The real question, is whether or not catching it is possible, or defeating it if that fails and then restraining it and moving it somewhere I, or preferably we, can work on freeing them." Very important to emphasize both that I trust him, and that I want an unambiguous force for good present for at least the most important steps. Best way to look not-suspicious, is to go out of your way to be not-suspicious while having a good reason that isn't just 'trying to be not-suspicious'. That just makes it look like you have something to hide, or an ulterior motive.
"I wouldn't object to helping both to save and free this Lugia, but if you don't know the exact date the attack is going to happen, I'd rather not spend an entire month staying at constant combat-readiness, and I can't ask Hiori or Lily to do the same." He made his opinion clear. "If you can nail down a date, I'll gladly help you save this Lugia. Either way, I'm happy to teach you how to perform Aura Purge in the interim, and help free them from whatever effect was placed on them."
"That's fine, I'm used to doing these things solo." I nodded.
"And speaking of which," He turned to the peanut gallery. "Lily, you've mastered the projection and control of your Aura far enough that I have nothing more to teach you in regards to my focal point. I'd still like to refine your basic stances a little more, but if you feel you're ready, you should start looking for additional tutoring outside of what I can provide you."
"R-really, sir?" She suddenly seemed a lot less brash than when she'd clipped her brother over the head a few minutes ago.
"Yes, my pupil." He repeated, visibly amused at how embarrassed that made her. "Most of my self-defense isn't on the same level as a dedicated martial artist, and there's only so much I can teach you compared to a dedicated Black Belt, or an instructor of another fighting style. You should be safe now in your day-to-day affairs, I'm sure of it. Though, you should also make sure to build a six-mon team to go along with your Riolu, just in case."
Hiori's cry of 'hell yeah, field trip!' as he re-hugged her sister, and she hesitantly re-hugged him back in deep thought, gave me a good idea as to how safe she'd be back home on the mainland. "…I, wouldn't mind finally going home again, sir." She quietly admitted.
"Then you can go whenever you like." He informed her without preamble. "I've set you up as best I can, and I'd like a few more weeks to straighten out your last few strikes, but soon it'll be time to find your own path in life, and make some better memories while you're at it."
From the wavering smile on her face and the wateriness of her unshed tears, I had a feeling that whatever she had faced and would face, that a life had just been saved from a terrible fate right in front of my eyes. And as she disentangled herself from her brother to go and hug a semi-surprised Riley instead, I was confident I was in good hands.
-Day 2564-
As I'd expected, the day after my fortnight-long Christmas meet-up with my parents expired, Cipher struck. Not until almost midnight, that was a bit unexpected, and I'd had to scramble to get Evan up and boosted while I strapped the harness I'd custom-ordered (for a not-inconsiderable amount of Yen) around my back, but at this point I'd had Teams Magma and Aqua, Rocket, and Galactic, all show their ugly mugs on the eighth day of the new year, so I'd been sitting up in bed, prepared for when a dreadful presence entered my field of range, and given the somewhat-low speed of the Gyrocopters and my decision to book official passage (for an also not-inconsiderable amount of Yen, while quietly telling the Captain that I had reason to believe someone might try something in the next month, and having a five-time champion on-board would definitely help), we had almost five minutes for Evan to shake herself awake, jump in the harness and get to boosting while I fastened it with my mind as I rushed to get on deck.
The S.S. Libra's job of transporting Pokemon was apparently because Orre (and local!America in general) had such terrible internet connections that they were unable to guarantee PC transferral with the rest of the world, and the only thing that kept me from making a joke about how RL!America's memetically-shit internet apparently transcended even across universes, was that this was a consistent-enough problem that some countries still periodically took their own international networks down to check for maintenance faults (because while leaving the PC system literally couldn't kill a Pokemon, being dumped in the middle of the freezing-cold Bering Strait could), and the politicians were actually quite savvy and economy-focused, enough to set up a public-owned shipping industry to transport Pokemon, in addition to the obvious catching of Fish Pokemon and cruise ship tours.
Unfortunately, as Teams Rocket and Aqua's mere existences proved, it wasn't just the crazy extremists who were forming gangs. There were plenty of traditional criminals if you knew where to look. And trust me, pirates in fiction might be romanticised as hell, but they still existed well into the twenty-first century back home, and they still existed here. Being boarded wasn't terribly likely, the S.S. Libra wasn't the gargantuan cruise liner I remembered and was actually a more reasonably-sized hundred-and-fifty meter cargo ship (would've helped if the introductory cinematic hadn't made Shadow Lugia look as big as the fucking boat, only for it's in-game size to be a normal five-point-two meters!, and was therefore actually quite fast… relatively-speaking. Twenty knots (thirty-seven kilometres-per-hour, my brain helpfully supplied) wasn't much on land or in the air, but on the open sea in a fifty-thousand ton boat?
…honestly? Now that I say that out loud, that just reinforces how terrifyingly-powerful Shadow Lugia is and how powerful all Lugia likely are.
For now. But one day… well, I'll be taking that crown by a mile, won't I? And this may very well be how it all starts snowballing.
By the time the Gyrocopters came into hearing range, I was already on top of the boat's bridge, Evan tapping my senses to double-check her own telekinetic feedback. Actually seeing Shadow Lugia… they were impressive, certainly, but more than the immediate presence, its cry was much more impressive.
Almost as impressive as my Espeon proceeding to methodically dumpster it, in what I'd hoped would be the simplest way possible. [Evan? Trick Room.]
My original strategy of Teleporting on top of an emotionally-unstable Legendary was frankly dangerous in the extreme. If it turned out to have faster reflexes and acted on its own initiative, or if the Master Ball failed before Evan Teleported us back to the deck… yeah, the risk/reward simply didn't come out in my favor. Thus, a newer combat-focused strategy was developed (despite Evan's initial objections). First, she would use Double Team, Calm Mind and Curse six times each, in that order. This would drastically cut down on her Speed, but skyrocket five of her six other stats to four times their normal effectiveness. The second, was to use Trick Room as soon as the Lugia drew within range.
Trick Room is difficult to explain. Simply put, it creates a field which inverts the relative speed of everyone in the area. And hell, Evan was probably never going to outspeed a Lugia, especially since she couldn't learn Agility naturally (or at least, not in the time frame we had, and with me needing her to learn a different move instead). So instead, I increased the Speed gap further, and then inverted it. And while I was standing on the bridge, watching the Lugia suddenly moving much slower [relatively] than we were, I commanded her to use her second planned Move. [Alright, use Trick.]
And with a tiny ball of patterned-yellow light, Evan Trick'd her Iron Ball onto the Lugia. That black Iron Ball, despite seeming to be a simple ball of iron, held two properties. The first and least important: Its holder has their speed cut in half, which would actually help close the Speed gap between them by quite a bit, making Lugia 'faster' in the Trick Room field. The second? The holder is forced to the ground, akin to the Move Gravity which, despite being a Psychic-type Move, cannot normally be learnt by Espeon and thus, took a lot of specialised training for her to integrate. That was the third Move I ordered her to use. [Now Gravity!]
And with those two factors combined, Shadow Lugia was unceremoniously dragged to the deck with a squawk of shock, where a telekinetically-guided Master Ball tagged it on the right wing-tip and captured it. The final move I'd planned for Evan to use, if capturing the Shadow Lugia failed, was Stored Power: despite only having 'twenty' Base Power, it would increase by 'twenty' for every 'stat boost' Evan had and wouldn't decrease for any 'stat drops' she was suffering. Five Stats with six boosts each made thirty, times twenty, would give Stored Power a Base Power of over six hundred, which would then be separately multiplied by four due to her Special Attack being boosted six times over. Even with Lugia's Psychic-resistance and immense Special Defense in the Games, versus Espeon's high Special Attack? I was confident that she could win, even if she wasn't.
But as the Master Ball clicked in a familiar tone, I realised it wasn't necessary and promptly scooped it up. [Evan, Teleport us down to my bag, now.]
Quickly storing it in a very strong container (another overly-expensive custom job, but an investment well made on the off-chance that Lugia demonstrated the ability to move its Pokeball around the same way the Partner could in the opening to Pokemon Let's Go), I had her Teleport us back to the bridge, where the terrified Grunts were now relaying information back to (presumably) Greevil, who would not be happy with me stealing back his prized 'possession'. As if Pokemon were pets to be owned.
[Evan, use Psychic and help me drag these idiots onto the ship.] Normally taking down flying enemies would be a huge hassle without killing them, but simply disabling each Gyrocopter with a precisely-homing Aura Sphere was well within my capabilities, at which point Evan could use her still-boosted psychic powers to drag them on board, passenger and all. Suffice to say, they didn't look particularly happy.
"…god damn it, I'm not getting paid enough for this." The first one to grow a pair finally sighed. "Look buddy, I don't know how you knew about the job we were going to pull or how you managed to pull that off, but the boss isn't going to let the theft of his prize project go. You hand it back over, and maybe we all get to go back to our lives and forget this whole thing ever happened. Okay? The boss is actually a pretty-forgiving type, but stealing a Legendary-"
"Give it a rest, mate." I interrupted. "Acting Agent Bourne of the International Police Force. The four of you are under arrest for a lot of things, including but not limited to: terrorism, sedition against the American government," Really wish I knew if they were the 'United States' here, "prevented manslaughter of at least the two crewmen sailing the S.S. Libra at the moment, animal cruelty and inhumane experimentation, and I'm pretty sure Greevil doesn't own the land rights to Citadark Isle. Yes," I added to their gawking faces. "I know about Greevil's little XD-001 project, and I know who he is, and the rest of the IPF was informed well in advance. And yes, your actions were going to result in the deaths of at least those two sailors, and yes, I absolutely will add squatting to the laundry list of charges the courts'll throw at you if you try to intimidate me. I can literally send out Lugia and mind-control it into attacking you if I destroy those fancy-looking devices over your eyes, and I doubt it'll be all that clean with whatever it does to your corpses. Or, you can play the 'I'm a random Grunt who was suckered in and regrets every little bad thing I've ever done' card, and you'll probably get six months at worst as long as you co-operate."
"Hey, man, we weren't planning on killing anybody-" He started, only for me to unceremoniously cut him off.
"I can see the future, kid. Lugia was going to knock those two off the boat and you were going to leave them to die at sea. Intent only changes the charge from murder to manslaughter, and like I said, you'll avoid the worst of it if you come quietly. But don't waste your words on me, save them for the courtroom." I gave them a Look. [Second and last chance, criminal scum: you surrender and you get a slap on the wrist, or I beat you unconscious with my mind and you get the kind of hard time that'll have all the people you care about forgetting who you are and what you look like. Any takers? Or are you going to martyr yourselves for Cipher, of all organisations?]
AN: Yes, I stumbled on the Phantom Thief Pokemon 7 Manga while I was looking up Aura usage to see what I could justify the SI learning, and since the setting's 'generic', I decided to include a bare-bones version that ties into game events, and gives the impression that the world does indeed progress even without the SI doing anything. You're welcome, I guess?
I was also considering a bigger (implied) fight scene on the S.S. Libra wherein the SI would focus on Lugia while Riley, Hiori, Lily's Riolu (which would evolve, because why not) and the just-met Wes and Rui (who would be returning to the Orre region probably due to the heat Fein caused them, possibly to announce their intentions to date to her family) against an armada of aircraft full of worthless Grunts, but I… really don't feel like trying to write that, and the S.S. Libra is not a cruise liner as I once thought, so why would they be on there?
Also also, other Pokemon I was considering the SI getting his hands on in place of Lugia, were either a Riolu Egg from Riley, a Meditite because Fighting/Psychic is basically my SI's 'theme' at this point (between Psionics and Aura), or a Bisharp/Haxorus/Scyther or something else covered in natural weaponry because that best fits the personality I plan on assigning 'her'. But hey, he has three Master Balls, and this is one of the few Legendaries he wouldn't feel bad about capturing, since y'know, it's not going to be doing any 'legendary duties' like guarding the ocean's currents in its corrupted state, and he saves human lives in the process.
