Chapter 7 — Starlight

A beam of sunlight shone over Ethan's face, rousing him from sleep. He was close to waking up anyways, he supposed, so he rolled over and opened his eyes. Fennekin was still in bed, body rhythmically rising and falling; as his senses gradually kicked in, he could hear her not-quite-a-snore heavy breathing she always did when she was in deep sleep.

A warm, damp breeze brushed his face as he sat up in bed. It had been raining for the past few days, and sunshine was a good sign. Some of the other Pokémon had been complaining about how humid it would be, but he figured it was better than getting actually rained on when going outside. How bad could it be, anyways? Pokéopolis was humid to begin with, how could it get worse?

Now that he was awake enough, he could make out the sounds of quiet talking outside their door; right, today was a meeting day. It didn't sound like everybody else was up yet, at least, although if some of them were already gathering then it was probably only a few minutes until they started knocking on doors.

"Hey Fennekin," he spoke softly, not wanting to be too jarring. Her breathing softened for a few seconds, but then went back to deep sleep.

"Fennekin," he said again as he got out of bed and walked over to her before gently nudging her. "I think the meeting is going to start soon."

With a loud groan, she turned over, facing away from him. "Five more minutes."

"Everyone's gathering now," he whispered. "If we're up, may as well go out there now."

"You're up," she grumbled. "I'm still in bed."

"Gonna have to wake up eventually."

Fennekin groaned, initially intensifying slowly but spiking sharply as she practically tossed her body up to a sitting position. "Happy?"

"Sure," he laughed. "Not sleep well or something?"

"Well, I was sleeping well until a few moments ago. Why?"

He shrugged. "You just seem tired, is all. Wasn't like this when we first got here."

"I'm not a morning Pokémon," she grumbled while smoothing over her fur, wild and unkempt from sleeping. "I was so excited when we started, I could barely sleep and woke up every morning ready to do anything. Guess I'm just getting used to being an explorer, huh? Never thought that would happen."

"What, did you think you'd never get used to it? Or that you'd never be one?"

She paused for a few moments, tired eyes staring straight ahead. "Both, really. I've wanted to be an explorer for as long as I can remember, so I guess I just hyped myself up and now...I don't really know what to expect." Another pause. "Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun. It's just weird." After another short pause, Fennekin gave out a long, deep yawn. "Well, I guess now we're up. And you're right, we have to go to the meeting eventually. Ready?"

Ethan stretched, a few small pops coming from his back which somehow felt good. "Yeah. You sure you're awake enough?"

Despite the smile on her face, she shook her head and sighed. "Yes, I'm up." After tilting her head to the side to stretch her neck, she walked to the door and exited their room.

About half of the Academy was already gathered for the morning meeting, Ethan could see once he followed Fennekin out of their room. Luxio and Roserade were talking together near the stairs, and while Cinccino was standing there with them, his thousand-yard stare told them that he was not quite entirely woken up yet. Explained why Roserade and occasionally Luxio were the ones leading these meetings, he supposed; both of them looked wide awake.

As they got closer to the small crowd congregating in the meeting space, Helioptile bounded up to them, a large smile on her face and a small object in her hand. "Morning, Stargazers!" she beamed.

"Morning," Fennekin grumbled through a large yawn.

"Good morning," Ethan said, looking at the object she was holding. "What's that you've got?"

"Emolga and I found it on an exploration yesterday!" She held up her hands: the object was not very large, about the size of a larger Pokémon's hand, and shiny. Strangely enough, one side of it was black while all others were silver. "Cool gem, huh?"

"What kind is it? I don't really go around looking at gems, but I don't think I've heard of any like that."

"We're not sure; we got in kind of late last night, so we're going to go to the market this morning and try to get an answer. I hope it's worth a lot; I saw Luxio teaching a Heliolisk how to use Signal Beam the other day, and she said she could do the same for me if I had the money!"

"How does she even—" Fennekin yawned, "—even teach other Pokémon how to use moves, and especially ones she doesn't know? I thought you could only learn new moves by getting stronger."

Helioptile shrugged. "You'd have to ask her, I've never done it before. And ask her to tell you about TMs, they're another way to learn moves and she can explain it better than I can."

The rest of the trainees trickled in over the course of a few minutes, each arrival seeming more and more tired than the last. Once they were all gathered, Roserade walked to the front and put a flower up to signal silence, which quickly came. "Thank you. Today should be a shorter meeting, but no less exciting. To start, thank you all for your work with missions; you are all becoming very efficient with your completions, and with the large volume of requests that we receive and post, your help is crucial. Cinccino?"

Cinccino yawned heavily, then reached a hand inside his flowing hair and pulled out an ancient-looking scroll. "Morning everyone," he slurred. "I've been speaking with the Exploration Society, and we think you all've been doing a great job with your missions, but haven't had as much time to do your own independent explorations as we'd like for you to have." Rather unceremoniously, he held the scroll up just above his head. "The Society has recently uncovered an old treasure map, and we think that it should serve as a fitting reward for our first ever competition."

Excited murmurs filled the room as Cinccino gestured to Roserade, who walked back to the front and allowed him to go back to looking exhausted at the back near the stairs. "In the nature of letting you all get more experience with true explorations, we've created a sort of discovery competition; for the next month, we will be tallying all the discoveries you make and report back to us. You are still expected to be helping out with missions and any other training you are assigned to, but we encourage taking some time, doing some research, and launching some explorations of your own. Discoveries will be counted on a mentor team basis, so make sure to work together and feel free to ask your mentors if you need any help. That's everything we needed to discuss with you today, so feel free to do whatever it is you need to to start preparing for this contest. Dismissed!"

Almost as soon as they were dismissed, every trainee excitedly found their partners and started planning; the news even seemed to wake Fennekin up. "Leafeon said they'd have an exploration for us, right?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "He said they'd finalize the details and then tell us, do you think they'd be done by now? Though even if they have, I don't know where to find them."

"Espeon and Umbreon said they were working with him on it, right? Do you think they'd know?"

"Worth a shot," he shrugged. "Should we ask Luxio about learning moves now or when we come back?"

"Let's ask her now, so we have an idea of what she could teach us." Fennekin looked up, and started running towards the stairs as she saw Luxio moving towards them. "Hey, Luxio!"

Luxio stopped and quickly surveyed the room, then looked down to Fennekin. "What can I help you with?"

"We wanted to ask you about learning moves," she responded. "Helioptile told you we should ask about teaching us moves and TMs."

"I can teach moves," she nodded. "I would have to check what I could teach to a Pikachu or a Fennekin, but was there any specific move you were looking to learn?"

Fennekin looked to Ethan at about the exact same time he looked to her. "I don't know," he spoke up after a few seconds, "maybe something to deal with ground types? We're both weak to them and I don't think either of us have any moves to deal with them."

Luxio looked over them both, seemingly deep in thought. "I don't think I can teach you much, but Ethan, I should be able to teach you Magnet Rise. It may not be an attack that damages them, but it would help you with their ground attacks. As for TMs, are you looking for a list of what you can learn or would you like me to explain how they work?"

"Both, I guess."

"I have it downstairs," she said with a motion of her head towards the stairs. "Follow me, I'll explain on the way.

"TMs," she began upon stepping on the stairs, "are items that can teach you a move once, and then they become unusable. Not every move has a TM, and not every Pokémon can use every TM. Magnet Rise, for example, does not have a TM for it. And if you found a TM for Flamethrower, Fennekin could use it but Ethan couldn't. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Ethan nodded. "If we're not here and want to use a TM, how do we know if we would be able to use it? Like, if we find one in a dungeon?"

Luxio stepped off at the third floor and turned left towards the training arena. "You can always try using it; if you can't, it simply won't work and it won't be used up. And you have to fully commit to using one, so if it feels like it will work, you can just stop and it won't be used up. You won't learn the move, but at least you'll know whether or not you're able to learn that move."

As they entered the training arena, Luxio went to a large book sitting on one of the low walls and started flipping through it. "I could teach you Magnet Rise, Ethan. It would be 4,000 Poké if you're interested."

Ethan's eyes went wide as he leaned in towards Fennekin. "Between the bounty and what we got from the treasure, I don't think we have that much."

Luxio gently shook her head as she closed the book. "Don't worry if you can't afford it right now; I'm not planning to go anywhere, and these aren't limited time offerings. Wait until you get the money, and if you decide to learn a move, just let me know. And feel free to look through the book if you're ever curious; it not only covers what you can learn naturally by getting stronger, but also what you can learn from TMs and what a move tutor like myself can teach you. I'm not the best move tutor by far, however, so I've marked which ones I'd be able to teach you and which ones you'd have to go to someone else for."

As Fennekin walked up to the book and started flipping through its pages, Ethan looked to Luxio. "Who else is a move tutor that we could go to if we want to learn some of those?"

"There's a couple around the city, but all the ones I know of work mostly on referral; their services are very valuable and sought-after, so you have to have a move tutor like myself who will teach anyone refer you." She winked, an almost devious smile growing on her face. "If you two get strong enough, I know one who can't ignore my references I'd be happy to send you to. Those moves tend to be stronger, more expensive, and a bit trickier to learn, which is also why they prefer to have somebody vouch for the people they train."

"Is this a complete list of moves we can learn?" Fennekin spoke up, staring intently at the book.

"Yes," Luxio confirmed.

"Hm." Fennekin flipped the page forward and briefly skimmed it before turning back. "I've heard of Pokémon in the Fennekin line using a move that's not listed in here."

Luxio tilted her head as she went over to the book and looked down at it. "Which move?"

"Magic Coat," Fennekin replied after a short pause. Ethan wasn't sure why, but that pause stood out to him; she had done it before, a barely noticeable delay before responding. She had been looking for the move, she clearly wasn't trying to think of what it was.

"It's possible it's an egg move," Luxio explained, seeming to not notice the pause. "I can look into that for you."

"Egg move?" he repeated. "What's that?"

"Some Pokémon can be born knowing moves they normally wouldn't because of their parents," Luxio began elaborating. "A Pokémon's father doesn't have to be the same species as their mother, and there are certain moves that they can pass down to their children if they know. My daughter, for example, knows how to use Quick Attack because Furret does, even though a Shinx can't normally learn it. And since I wasn't born knowing how to use it, I wouldn't be able to learn it."

"Why does the moves your parents know affect you? And are you able to learn all the moves that they know?"

"Not quite. There are a few specific moves that Pokémon can inherit from parents of different species, and if you forget that move, it's not possible to relearn it. It's more of an instinctual act you do to use your egg moves, as opposed to ones you learn via leveling up or training. Does that make sense?"

"Not really," he admitted, "but I also don't know any egg moves. At least, I don't think I do?"

"You'd know if you did. If you don't, don't worry; it's not like every Pokémon knows some. Some moves you can inherit from your parents are also possible to learn through TMs or training, so it's not like you have no options if you don't know any egg moves."

"We can both learn Grass Knot!" Fennekin beamed. "It's a TM, but we can be on the lookout for one."

"That's the spirit," Luxio smiled at her. TMs are a great way to cover your team's weaknesses; Ethan can take care of water types for you well enough, but doesn't have much for rock types and both of you are weak to ground, so a grass move would be of great help. Exploration stores in town sell them and some Pokémon will offer them as mission rewards, so keep an eye out in both of those places if you're interested."

Fennekin looked over the page, then closed the book. "Thanks for the explanations! I don't think I have anything else."

"Neither do I," he added. "Thanks."

"Quite literally my job," she laughed softly. "Do you two have an idea what you two will be doing for the competition?"

"Sort of," he responded slowly. "Leafeon had mentioned something they were wanting to have us help with, so we were thinking of going and asking them about it."

"Good luck. Did he say what it was?"

"Yeah, the Starlit Grove. Do you know anything about it?"

"Only stories, sadly; nothing that will help you. I'll be excited to hear what you find, even if you come back empty-handed. Let me know how the exploring itself goes, too, so we can try and help you in anything you may need."

"Thanks," Fennekin smiled. "We're kinda nervous, but still really excited."

"You never forget your first expedition," Luxio winked. "Mine was to the Blackwater Falls, not too far west of Pokéopolis; the area was breathtaking, and we found some old human maps we were able to get some good money for."

"Was that when you were with Team Moondancers, or before?"

A small smile grew on Luxio's face as she tilted her head up slightly, clearly lost in thought. "When I was with them. It was the team's first expedition, actually. Back before Lopunny and Mawile, and back before myself or Meowstic had evolved. Funny enough, Houndoom was also with us; he was just a Houndour then, just as new to exploring as we were."

"Houndoom was a part of Team Moondancers? I'd never heard that!"

Luxio shrugged nonchalantly. "He wasn't with us for long; a couple missions before that expedition and then maybe one or two after, then he met up with Meowstic and Leafeon and started doing some missions with them."

"So he's the reason the two teams are so close," Ethan spoke up.

"Both of us, really. We've known each other since we were kids and when we were planning our expedition, I suggested we reach out to him since I knew he was also becoming an explorer."

"He's never mentioned knowing you," Fennekin thought aloud. "Well, no more than knowing Lopunny or Mawile."

A single laugh came from Luxio. "Of course he hasn't. My mom was the Sheriff of Pokéopolis and his dad was a Deputy when we were kids, so we've always been friends since our parents knew each other. He takes me for granted, and you can tell him I said that."

"We'll, uh...be sure to," Ethan chuckled. "We should probably go find Leafeon, and maybe he's there with him."

"Good luck, again," she said with a single nod. "Let me know if you need anything else from us to help plan your expedition."