The co-author/editor has a stutter and can't say "Eternatus" without making each syllable its own word. Rather than ignore it, during the planning stages we made a joke out of it.
"...and he was never seen again," Opal finished, leading them down the streets of Hammerlocke.
Victor stared at her, trying to comprehend what had led up to that line. "Oh, I deeply regret tuning that out," he said after a moment.
Gloria, who had been listening from the start, was at a loss as to how to summarize it. "I can't exactly write a Wikipedia article under pressure," was the only thing she said about it.
Opal chuckled. "Well, if you've seen The Trouble with Harry, you get the general idea."
They rounded the corner together. Victor, his eyes not half-blind with old age or distance difficulty, saw Bede first, standing in front of the Hammerlocke Gym that he'd never get to challenge. The ladies saw him not long after, but Opal was much faster than Gloria when it came to reacting.
"Time for my Gym Mission, child!" she shouted, dropping the umbrella and running straight for Bede, discarding all attempts to appear like a regular feeble elderly woman.
"What drugs are you on?" Bede complained as Opal started tugging at his coat, calling it "pink." And then his flustered face, using the same word. And then his decidedly not pink hair, still insisting that it was, in fact, pink.
"You should have expected that we'd find you, Bede," Victor said, as if Opal pulled this kind of thing all the time. "If you wanted your freedom, you should have just asked."
This, finally, got through to the Gym Leader. "This is the boy you kidnapped by accident?" she asked. When Victor and Gloria nodded, she reached into her purse. "I'd like to pay his ransom. How much money do you want?"
"How much do you have?" Gloria asked before Victor could answer.
"Enough money to buy a single Potion, two Kelpsy Berries and a peppermint."
So that was how they sold a human being for pocket change and a few rare berries for curry. But at least Bede seemed to have an idea about what to do with his new situation, as he began the walk back to the Flying Taxi with several questions about everything Opal knew about Wishing Stars.
Heading out to Circhester, they encountered Sonia once more. She had a few questions, such as why Victor reacted the way he did when he saw the Pokémon in the Stow-on-Side ruins, but he was spared from answering by a loud explosion.
"What's going on at the stadium?" Sonia asked, not expecting an answer from a couple of teenagers.
"Raihan has a battle?" Victor suggested, though he wasn't sure if Hop and Marnie had made it past Circhester yet and didn't think anyone else was ahead of them.
But Sonia had a different theory. "That's where Chairman Rose's power plant is," she said, and it surprised them both that she sounded suspicious. "What is he doing in there?"
In the power plant, Rose was listening to an employee ramble on. He didn't care much, but he kept the smile on his face as the employee continued.
"In short," the employee said, and Rose came back to full attention when he processed that he was finally getting the summary, "you've poured loads of money into this project, and we haven't seen any returns. I thought you were a business genius, sir."
"I never said that," Rose said quickly. "And I never said I was in this for money. I'm in this for the future of Galar, and if we can get Ete-Etenna-Eter..." He shook his head - he never got names right, and this one always seemed to make him stutter. "If we can use the power of...an ancient Pokémon...Galar won't have to worry about energy for centuries. I'll be long gone and forgotten, but my accomplishments will save the region."
"This was...a plan to get renewable energy?"
"Of course!" Rose insisted. "You can't hold solar or wind power for long, and if it's cloudy or the windmills freeze, you'll run out of energy in a few days and possibly freeze over an entire city, or region, or country. Nuclear power is, well, nuclear. And we all know the trouble with fossil fuels."
"But don't you think you should try to do this cheaply?"
"Why? I don't intend to make a profit on this. Making my money back wouldn't hurt, of course, who doesn't want to be rich?" He laughed, the employee didn't.
"Do you even have a plan to carry this out successfully?"
"I have a plan," Rose reassured. "And It's a good one." An audible explosion was heard from a lower level of the building. "It's a good enough one," he said in correction.
The employee shook his head. "What are we even doing down there?"
Rose opened a drawer in his desk and took out a small wishing star and a lightbulb. Holding out both items, he demonstrated the goal of their research by touching the rock to the bottom of the bulb. The bulb lit up, to the employee's amazement. Seconds later, the bulb shattered from the high amount of energy. This startled the employee, but the chairman shook away the broken glass as if there weren't small pieces of it in his hand and continued like normal. "It's not a secret that the Wishing Stars contain high amounts of energy, but trial runs are so messy and dangerous that the experiments were shut down throughout the region. But Pokémon, being the extraordinary creatures they are, have been proven to be able to harness this energy safely. That, my friend is the key."
The employee took a step back in fear. "You're experimenting on Pokémon?"
"Nothing shady, I assure you," Rose reassured. "It's simply examining each Pokémon to see how they are able to store that powerful energy. We managed to get many helpful subjects, and the greatest possible example is in the lowest level of the plant. If we solve the formula, we save the world."
It was a good plan on paper, if you could forget about the dangers for a moment, and he could not fault the man for good motivation. But then he remembered why he was here. "If we run out of money in the process, who pays me?"
Rose leaned back on his desk and picked an apple up from his desk as he thought the question over. "If it should come to that, I will put in a good word for you in the job market," he decided as he took a bite from the apple.
Leon found them quickly enough, making sure that they were ok. Sonia was quick to explain what she found on her Power Spot detector, and worried aloud that Pokémon might start Dynamaxing in the middle of Hammerlocke.
"It could be the Excadrill incident all over again!" she finished, and Leon cringed at the thought.
"I'll investigate," he promised. "You said that it came from the stadium? That's easy enough, even I can't miss it."
"Want to bet?" Sonia challenged, getting a smile from the Champion.
"Not exactly," he admitted. "But it can't be too hard. It's a big building."
"I'll go too," Sonia decided, "just in case. Victor, you and Gloria go on ahead, leave this to the adults."
Victor tried to protest that teens and preteens getting involved tended to lead to stopping whatever nonsense was threatening the world, but the two were gone immediately, and Hop was waving them forward and calling their names, so they decided to just let it go.
"Best to let the adults handle it," he decided when they asked if he was willing to help. "After that forest and that mad quiz, I'm lost in every sense of the word."
"So that's it, then?" Gloria asked, looking back at the stadium briefly. "We're just going to let this go?"
"It's best to let the adults handle it," Hop told her, as if he knew what he was talking about. "We'll prepare to get involved if we have to, but don't forget, Lee's one of those adults. He's one of the best trainers in Galar."
He didn't add the usual 'second to me.' He was clearly still recovering from Bede trauma. Victor thought about telling him what they'd done with Bede, but Hop was already on his way, saying something about how Victor should prepare because he was getting ready to battle.
Victor: Dash (Cinderace) Corviknight, Drednaw, Excadrill, Axew
Gloria: Ace (Drizzile) Dishwasher (Galarian Linoone) Rogue (Thievul) Hattie (Hatenna) Harry (Impidimp)