In the legends of past times, there have been many calamities that threatened the peace of the world. To stop each of these calamities, a duo of heroes was called upon; they were collectively known as the Dyads of Legend. A duo of Pokémon who reincarnated again and again to protect the planet and maintain peace and order. One Pokémon always came from the world they were destined to save, the other always came from a foreign world, transformed into a Pokémon from a different form, but still filled with the same determination to save it. Who they were and how they came about were always a mystery.
With the defeat of the Great Evil, there seemed to be no more calamities to threaten the world. The deities that protected the earth went to sleep. The Pokémon of the world lived again in peace. And the services of the Dyads were thanked as they would never be needed again. But something new lurks on the horizon…
Part 1: Zephyrus
Syllose City: Alpha Labs - 1:42 PM
The bright white fluorescent lights and bright white tiled floors and bright white walls of the office building were a bit irritating to Garret Reeves. He would've preferred spending time outdoors in more natural environments like ones with green oak trees, blue clear skies, and red fruit bushes. But he didn't let that bother him, as this was an important day for both him and his team.
"Aren't you excited Garret?" said the man next to him as they paced down the hall, their dress shoes clacking against the tiled linoleum floor. "Finally, we get to make a breakthrough with the project!"
Garret readjusted the messenger bag on his shoulder a little. "Totally Wayne, but I don't see the need to walk so fast."
"Nonsense my friend," Wayne replied, "walking faster means we go places faster which means we get to do things earlier and thus faster. Honestly man, at least show a little bit of pep! You're always laid-back and relaxed all the time, nothing ever riles you up!"
As they reached the end of the hall, Wayne pressed the button on the elevator and it opened with a ding.
Garret simply smiled and shrugged as they entered the elevator. "Well, when you hired me you said that you were looking for a trainer who is 'unfazed' by anything, so I'm just doing my job."
"Ha!" Wayne laughed at the comment as he patted Garret on the shoulder. "Even so, you should lighten up a little. C'mon, it was in large part due to your efforts that we could get the materials for the project. Plus, you really don't have to even work today, you just get to lay back and watch the experiment!"
Wayne pushed the button to floor "B2" and they started to head down.
The elevator had a few mirrors inside where one could look back at their own reflection. Garret had a rough complexion, with a short bristly beard and black short hair. He was also somewhat tan, as if he spent a lot of time in the sun. He was fairly muscular too, so if you gave him a flannel (which he usually wore with jeans) he would've looked like a lumberjack minus the bushy beard. But today he wore a more professional look with a dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes with a blazer.
Wayne on the other hand was slightly taller and skinnier, had a freshly shaved beard, neatly combed brown hair, and is almost pale from how little he goes outside. He wore a full 3-piece white suit with a black tie and black dress shoes in addition to his silver Rolex watch.
"Just think about it," Wayne continued, "creating power from evolution stones! Not only is the energy output massive and extremely efficient, but it's also a completely clean source of power! No more pollution from coal plants, gasoline, and other fossil fuels. I mean heck, we could probably compete with nuclear fuel!"
"Theoretically," Garret replied, "if it works."
Wayne scoffed. "Of course it'll work! Do you not have any faith in your wife Sarah and all the lab techs down there?"
"Of course I have faith it'll work. I just think it's always good to not prematurely assume."
"Look Garret, I appreciate your caution, but you have to stop being such a pessimist. It wouldn't hurt to be a little optimistic now wouldn't it?"
"I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I guess with me being the pessimist and you being the optimist, I guess we balance each other out well."
"Ha ha!" Wayne laughed at Garret's comment. "See! Now that's optimistic thinking!"
The elevator opened and the two men walked out into a small room. The ambiance in the basement felt more industrial with dark gray concrete making up the floor, walls, and ceiling, and humming fluorescent lights filling any silence. The back-end of the room led to a secure door where they were greeted by a tough-looking security guard with a growlithe to their side. "Hello Mr. Parme and Mr. Reeves. Your day going well so far?" they asked as they swiped their keycard on the door scanner and held the door open for the two.
"Yessir Bill!" replied Wayne as he patted Bill on the shoulder. "Hey, make sure you give my regards to Sandra though. I hope she gets over that flu soon."
"Aw thanks boss. I'll let her know!"
The two men continued down another long hallway with various labeled signs that read: "Unit B2-A", "Unit B2-B", "Unit B2-C", etc. But they only ended up going into the first room "B2-A". As they entered, they were greeted by the sounds of busy chatter from the various engineers, scientists, and other workers.
The first room was relatively small and relatively simple. It was just a viewing area that overlooked a larger chamber. It had a control panel consisting of various PCs that can control and monitor different systems.
Past the glass though was the main attraction. It was a relatively large circular chamber that could probably fit a party of fifty people. Three thick heavy-duty cables extended from the walls and joined together in the center of the room where they were plugged into the top of a huge metal and pillar-shaped structure.
The center of the pillar had a glass section where you could a rainbow-colored stone on a small pedestal inside. Just above that were three nodes where the heavy-duty cables were connected to. Protruding from the pillar just above the nodes were smaller cylindrical canisters that each carried a thunderstone inside. On the side of the pillar at the base was a metal latched door leading into a small glass chamber.
A few scientists in white lab coats were sitting at some of the PCs in the room typing away. A few of them turned around in their swivel chairs when they heard the door open. "Garret! Wayne!" One of the scientists exclaimed as she got up and approached the two. "We're just finishing up prep here, should be good in about 10 minutes."
"Great Sarah!" Wayne replied. "Is it a problem if I check with the others down there?"
"Not at all, I'm sure they'd be glad to see you. In fact, I think Darren is part of the crew down there."
"Oh really? Has he been working hard?"
Sarah nodded. "Yep, for being a new intern, he's done a lot to help out the team."
Wayne nodded. "Excellent! Well, I'll head down and leave you two to talk then," he said as he gave a small wave and started walking out of the observation room into the larger chamber below.
"Sarah Reeves, Chief Scientist at Alpha Labs" (as it read on her name tag) had long blonde hair (though a bit messy) and emerald green eyes. She was wearing a pair of square glasses, a standard lab coat with jeans, and a purple and black T-shirt that was only somewhat visible underneath the coat. It had a logo for a rock band called "TOXIC WAVE" that had a toxtricity, loudred, rotom, and a few other Pokémon on it.
Garret and Sarah embraced in a hug for a bit before talking. "Hey mister, you're actually wearing something workplace approved for once!" Sarah teased.
"Yeah…" Garret replied as he scratched the back of his neck. "Figured I should wear something a little more professional-looking for the project today.
"Though you are missing something…" Sarah noted.
"Oh?"
"AH! You aren't wearing your scarf! Isn't it super important that you keep it on all the time?"
"Not really, just when I go to sleep. It isn't an issue if I take it off every now and then. I just left it at home for today so it doesn't ruin the look."
"I guess that's fine then… Speaking of home, did everything go well at my mom's?"
"Mhm," Garret nodded. "I dropped Stella off and everything went swimmingly. I thought she'd be bored staying with just her grandma, but the neighbors have a kid of their own that she was playing with."
"Oh, you must mean the Lane family, right?"
"Yeah, though I didn't get to introduce myself properly since I was in such a rush to get here."
"Well after we're done here and we go to pick up Stella, maybe I can introduce you to them?"
Garret nodded. "Sounds good."
Just at that moment, Wayne and another scientist walked back into the room from the chamber below. "We're just about ready to start Mrs. Reeves. Just 2 minutes now." Said the other scientist.
Garret looked into the chamber below to where some of the other scientists were readying up some equipment and other workers were inspecting miscellaneous cables. He watched as a scientist carried a shiny stone (the evolution stone) in a small case to another scientist who was with a minccino. That scientist then led the minccino into the lower chamber of the machine, gave them the case with the shiny stone, and closed the chamber door.
"Let me try to understand this," Garret said. "So basically the idea is to have minccinno evolve using the shiny stone I collected, then channel the excess energy from their evolution into that rainbow-stone, which then powers up the thunderstones and produces electricity?"
"Yep, you got it!" exclaimed Sarah as she sat down at one of the computers. "It comes at no expense to the Pokémon too since the energy we are absorbing is unused energy from the evolution process. Otherwise, all of that excess stuff dissipates into the air. It's pretty safe. Once we determine that producing electricity like this is possible, then we can move to finding more sustainable sources of energy since it wouldn't be too practical or efficient to have a Pokémon evolve every time we want to extract energy from an evolution stone. Who knows, there might even be a way to get the stuff directly from the stones."
"Right…" Garret replied, slightly overwhelmed by the info dump from Sarah. "I'm glad that it's safe at least."
"Oh of course it is! We even have variable energy dampeners to make sure everything goes smoothly," Sarah replied as she gestured to the computer screen.
Wayne patted Garret on the shoulder. "No worries Garret, Sarah has this whole thing under wraps."
One of the workers down in the chamber gave a thumbs-up. "That's our signal to start!" Sarah exclaimed gleefully.
Through the chamber glass, everyone could see the minccino open the case and touch the shiny stone after one of the scientists below gave a command. Suddenly, the blue light from evolution illuminated the whole room in a mesmerizing, bright blue glow. At just the same time, the rainbow stone in the middle of the pillar started glowing, followed by the thunderstones which all started to glow brighter and brighter.
"We're reading… 100 watts… 500 watts… 5,000 watts… 200,000 watts… 400,000 watts, dear Arceus! Turn on the dampeners, this is rising way too fast!" One of the scientists typed away at their keyboard and pressed a button. "Dampeners on now."
There were no visible changes to the machine, but the readings on the computer monitor kept rising and rising and rising until they hit about 3,200,000 watts.
"It's steady now…" One of the scientists quietly commented. All of the scientists were silent, visibly shocked by the huge number.
Wayne broke the silence, "How… How much is that exactly?"
Sarah spoke up. "It's enough to supply about… I'd say 2,000 homes, give or take, with power for however long it's able to output energy. This is way way more than we were expecting. In fact, this is probably revolutionary!"
"And it's safe and stable?" Garret asked.
"Yep, with the energy dampeners, the system will be able to match the variable output of the stone and only take as much as it can handle. Without them, the system would overheat and most likely catch on fire." Sarah then pointed to the glowing rainbow stone in the middle. "However much the Chroma Stone absorbed it will eventually output. So we can just leave it as is and monitor how much energy it's outputting over time."
Wayne nodded. "So… mission success?"
Sarah gave a wide smile. "Basically yeah. I guess so! Though we still need to monitor things to be completely certain…" Sarah turned to the two other scientists in the room. "Carl and Sanchez, can you two stay up here and monitor things for a bit? I'm going down to congratulate the others on a successful test!" Both scientists each gave their own response, "Sure thing chief." "Yes ma'am."
"I want to come down too, I'd like to get a closer look at the machine," Garret added.
Sarah turned to Wayne. "Are you coming too?"
Before Wayne could respond, his phone rang. Even two floors underground, the company's addition of cell signal boosters that lead from underground all the way to the surface, just goes to show how determined humans are to be capable of being annoyed 24/7.
"Welp, I gotta take that. You two go on ahead."
Sarah and Garret climbed down the stairs into the chamber below where some of the workers were opening the vault and congratulating the newly-evolved cinccino for their help.
Wayne walked out into the hallway and answered their phone. It was a typical business call, stuff about a contract, a bunch of business jargon, etc. But suddenly in the middle of the call, the lights began to flicker. "Hello? Hello?" Wayne said into the phone with no response. Then, the lights abruptly shut off and it was pitch black. Wayne turned on the flashlight on his phone and ran back into the viewing room. "What happened?"
"The power went out sir," one of the scientists said, blocking their eyes from the assault of Wayne's flashlight. "The back-up generators should be back on in a moment."
"Will the experiment be okay?" Wayne said as he looked down into the large chamber. Wayne could hear the nervous murmurs of the workers down below. The glowing stones illuminated the whole chamber with a subtle rainbow glow but was only being slightly outshined by the flashlights from the workers below. Were they getting… brighter?
"As long as the generators come on soon. If they don't turn on, at worse we'll have a fire from the excess electricity to contend with. We can prevent that from happening by unplugging the cables."
But the generators didn't turn on, and in the next few seconds, the stones only grew brighter. Wayne squinted as he thought he was seeing cracks on the rainbow stone. "What the…"
Before anyone could react, they were all consumed in a blinding white light, the explosion devouring them in just milliseconds.
