Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
Pokémon: Sinnoh no Isekai
Chapter One-hundred and fifty-seven: Ludicrous Lumiose
The heroes, after learning a fair bit about the background of a Team Scorn Admin, hit the road again to continue on their trek through the Kalos region. After an encounter that led to dealing with some Furfrou, the heroes made it back to Lumiose City. "Ah Lumiose City," Trip said as he inhaled through his nose before exhaling, "One of the finest cities in Kalos, if not all the world."
"I left in such a hurry the last time that I was here," Serena admitted, "I didn't really get a chance to check anything out."
Shrugging, Ash said, "All I know is that the gym here requires challengers to have at least four other Kalos gym badges first."
Serena, looking confused, turned to regard Ash. "How so?"
"I say that we go on to Cyllage City and continue seeing Ash, Dawn, Kenny, and Trip earn the four badges they respectively need," Clemont began, "Then come back here and ask the gym leader when they're ready to see us."
"I agree!" Bonnie said, "I still need to find a wife for Clemont anyway! That remains me, hey Serena, Dawn, would eith-"
"No," Serena replied instantly.
Dawn, on the other hand, decided to deflect the conversation back at the two siblings. "...You two both know something about the gym having the four Kalos badge minimum requirement, don't you?"
As Clemont and Bonnie tried to figure out what to do, they were cut off when a man's voice called out, "Ah, there you two are!" The heroes all turned to look and saw a tall and well toned man come walking up.
"Oh, dad!" Bonnie said, running up to the man, "Hey dad! I found two girls who would both be good candidates as a wife for Clemont!" It was clear to Dawn that Bonnie was using that as a cover to keep from having to explain to the rest of the group what the deal with the local gym is.
"Bonnie, I told you to drop that!" Clemont said, clearly embarrassed.
The man, apparently the father of Bonnie and (by extension) Clemont, gave a booming laugh of sincere amusement. Turning to look at the rest of the heroes, the man said, "Sorry if my little one here's giving you any trouble! It's just that she worried so much about her older brother finding a girl that she decided to take it upon herself to find a girl for Clemont! It's real sweet if you think about it!"
Walking up to Bonnie and Clemont's father, Dawn replied, "Well it's great to meet you, sir. I'm-"
"-Well I'll be danged!" Bonnie and Clemont's father said, cutting Dawn off, "That news report a short while ago wasn't pulling my leg! Sinnoh Champion Dawn Berlitz really DID come to Kalos! And to help fight off Team Scorn, I bet!" Holding out a hand to offer Dawn a handshake, Bonnie and Clemont's father said, "The name's Meyer, I own and run an electrical goods store here in Lumiose City!"
Dawn nodded once in understanding. "Yes. In addition to fighting off Team Scorn, my friends and I are also aiming to challenge the gyms here in Kalos to earn eight badges each. Kenny, Trip, Ash, and I each already got a badge from the gym in Santalune City, and we're aiming to take on the gym in Cyllage City next."
"Well in that case," the now identified Meyer said, "You'll be wanting to take on Clemont at some point. He's the gym leader for the Lumiose City gym you know!"
Turning to look at a now very nervous looking Clemont, Kenny said, "Oh really now!" Meyer then excused himself before driving away in a truck, in the bed of which sat an Ampharos. The reborn trainers, as well as Ash and Serena, all looked at Clemont and Bonnie. "...You two gots some 'splainin' to do," Kenny said as he and the others all looked firmly at Clemont and Bonnie.
Later, the heroes were all in one of the plazas of Lumiose City as Clemont and Bonnie began to explain themselves. "You see," Clemont began, "I really am the gym leader for the Lumiose City gym."
"Then why are you here with us rather than running your gym?" Trip asked.
"Because my duties kept me so busy that I had no time for my passion of inventing new things," Clemont said, "I even tried setting my gym leader duties up as a nine to five job where I had weekends off, but the sheer number of challengers that I got made that impossible."
"Did..." Dawn began, "...Did you try explaining things to the challengers?" Dawn was impressed that Clemont had first thought of and tried implementing what was suggested to Skyla back in Unova. "Did you tell them that you needed time off for your life outside of your duties?"
Sighing, Clemont replied, "The Kalosian royal family issued a decree forcing my gym to accept challengers whenever they came to my gym. They did so because I was having a weekend off when a nephew of the royal family came by to challenge my gym and was annoyed to be told to come back during the work week. In fact, the decree covered all gyms in Kalos."
"So now it's the royals screwing up," Kenny said, "But I digress. How did you solve the problem of always having to battle challengers when they came by?"
Pointing to Kenny, Clemont said, "The decree said that my gym had to accept all challengers. But it never said that I had to be the one to fight them. With my inventive skills, I made a robot programmed to run gym battles if I'm not available."
"You..." Ash began, "...Made a robot?"
Nodding once, Clemont said, "I programmed the Clembot to be a tough but fair and kind gym leader with my ideals, where challengers ought to have at least four gym badges before challenging the gym. I was able to get away with the four gym badge requirement by saying my gym's tough enough to require it anyway, getting the royals to leave me alone. That, and all members of the royal family interested in earning gym badges had already earned the badge my gyms hands out to winners anyway. But I digress."
Gesturing in the direction the gym was in, Dawn asked, "And people can't get into your gym because..."
"Due... to some faulty programming," Clemont began, looking and sounding embarrassed, "Clembot saw me as a challenger and kicked me out of my own gym when I failed to show I had four Kalos gym badges."
"Didn't you think of putting in some sort of backup plan?" Serena asked.
Nodding once, Clemont replied, "I put in a Master Recognition Battle Mode' in case I ever had to reassert dominance over Clembot, but the wrong voice code got registered, hence Clembot kicked me and Bonnie out of the gym."
"We've tried several times to get back in," Bonnie said, "But they all failed. We're out of ideas."
Giving things a moment's thought, Dawn said, "...I have an idea, but you and Bonnie may not like it..."
A short while later, after the reborn trainers had time to rotate their parties as needed, the heroes made their way over to the gym. Outside of it, a number of trainers had gathered, complaining about the gym and how ruthless Clembot is. Seeing Clemont getting disheartened, Serena asked, "Hey Clemont, why did you become a gym leader in the first place?"
"Ooh, ooh," Bonnie said, "Clemont's a genius when it comes to electric Pokémon, and he thought becoming an electric gym leader would attract attention from challengers to help make him stronger."
Nodding in understanding, Dawn said, "Fair enough." Dawn then led the group over to the gym's front doors. When the doors refused to budge because of the lack of Kalos gym badges Dawn had, Kenny suggested that he, Dawn, Trip, and Ash try pooling their four Bug Badges together and see if that works. Dawn, wanting to humor Kenny before resorting to brute forcing her way in with her named Garchomp Germany, agreed and got him, Trip, and Ash to pool their Bug Badges with hers and see if that would work. To Dawn's surprised amazement, it did in fact work, allowing the heroes to enter the Lumiose gym.
"...Huh," Clemont said as he and the others went inside, "I never thought about the possibility of one challenger trying to get in with multiples of the same badge."
Dawn, after she, Kenny, Trip, and Ash got their respective Bug Badges back, remarked, "Well it's a good thing you didn't consider that. My first idea, if the one Kenny came up with had failed, would have been for us to brute force our way in with the powerful ground Pokémon we have, such as my Garchomp." As the heroes made their way into the gym, they encountered some Magnemite and a few Magneton. "Those are actually Pokémon cared for at my gym," Clemont said as the Magnemite and Magneton all looked happy to see Clemont before getting a little aggressive, "But they've been ordered by Clembot to get rid of intruders."
Dawn sent out Shadow, her named west sea Gastrodon, to back up Trip's named east sea Gastrodon Tsunade, and Kenny's named shiny Sandslash Elay. The three ground Pokémon quickly made quick work of the Magnemite and Magneton. Ash even incapacitated a few by having his Froakie stick some down harmlessly with its frubbles before the group continued. Eventually, the heroes made their way to the battlefield, where Clembot was waiting. As soon as the heroes made it in, Clembot began to address them.
"Challengers have entered the gym," Clembot said.
Clemont, after thinking back to the day he programmed Clembot, activated the Master Recognition Battle Mode and, having remembered the voice code that goes with it, was able to finally to battle against his robot. Tasking the initiative, Clembot sent out a Heliolisk. The Heliolisk, same as the Magnemite and Magneton, is also one of Clemont's Pokémon. But given the situation, it had to follow Clembot's orders. As for Clemont, he wasn't sure how well he'd do, given that he only had his Bunnelby and it wasn't as experienced as Heliolisk.
Getting an idea that might speed things up, Dawn called out, "Wait, Clemont! You forgot to take back the Pokémon you loaned me!" Clemont, as well as the rest of the heroes, were confused by what Dawn meant, but she ran up to Clemont and handed him Germany's pokéball while whispering to him, "You can borrow my Garchomp if it helps. He knows Dragon Claw, Earthquake, Rock Tomb, and Iron Head. Oh, he answers to his nickname Germany." Clemont, seeing what Dawn was getting at, nodded in thanks as he accepted the help. Dawn then ran back to the rest of the group and whispered to them the plan, to which they all saw the value of what Dawn did and all agreed that it was a good plan.
Taking the pokéball loaned to him by Dawn, Clemont called out, "Go, Germany!" After the ball was tossed up, Dawn's named Garchomp came out to battle. He was a little confused at first due to seeing Clemont commanding him, but seeing Dawn in the audience give him a thumbs up and a knowing wink, the named Garchomp got the idea and decided to play along.
"Enemy Pokémon recognized as a Garchomp," Clembot said, "A dual dragon-ground type. Proceeding with best course of action. Heliolisk, use Dragon Tail!"
"Germany," Clemont called out, "Use Earthquake!"
As Heliolisk rushed in, its tail glowing with dragonic power, Germany triggered a powerful quake that shook the entire battlefield, slamming Heliolisk with seismic waves that sent it reeling back before it hit the ground and skidded for a bit. After it came to a stop, everyone saw that Heliolisk had been knocked out.
Clemont just stared on in dumbfounded shock. "...So that's the power of a Champion..." Clemont muttered under his breath, too quietly for the others to hear.
Later, after he made sure Heliolisk was alright while Dawn took Germany back from him, Clemont went about reprogramming Clembot. He first removed the badge restriction, then he got rid of all undue harshness towards challengers. He also reset the Master Recognition Battle Mode password, and did a proper job at setting it. He also erased some memories from Clembot in case it asked about Clemont using Dawn's Garchomp. Once everything was back to normal, the heroes went on over to the shop that Meyer owned and ran.
There, Clemont explained what all happened to his dad, while also explaining what all he experienced on his journey. Meyer, who as it turned out is a big softie, embraced both Clemont and Bonnie in a hug as he cried tears of joy, happy that they had made so many new friends in such a short time. He also cited how he had no need to fear for their safety if Team Scorn pops up, because Champion Dawn was with them. Although it would be a tad cramped, the heroes were all put up at Meyer's and his childrens' place for the night.
When night rolled around, Dawn and Serena were presented with a surprise by Bonnie and Meyer; at Bonnie's suggestion, they had gotten Dawn and Serena sleep outfits just like the Tyrantrum one Bonnie owned. However, these new sleep outfits were sized to fit Dawn and Serena, also Dawn's was Infernape-themed while Serena's was Fennekin-themed. The older girls, although a tad embarrassed, agreed to a group photo with Bonnie in which they all wore their sleep outfits with the hoods up. Kenny wasn't able to help it but laugh at Dawn and Serena, to which Trip told him to knock it off.
Ash, being polite, told Dawn and Serena they both looked nice in their new sleep outfits, saying that they went well with the girls who respectively wore them. Trip was even able to get Ash to make an extra nice remark about Serena in the Fennekin sleep outfit, eliciting some embarrassed blushing out of Serena. Trip, although he wouldn't be able to get with Ash, was going to help things along so that Serena got with the boy from Pallet Town, Kanto. After everyone had settled down, they all went up to Clemont's room and Bonnie's room for bed for the night; the boys went to Clemont's room and the girls went to Bonnie's room.
While the girls were in Bonnie's room, Bonnie said to Dawn, "Thanks again for helping my brother reclaim his gym from his robot."
Dawn nodded once in understanding. "Just remind me in the morning to tell Clemont that after I get four Kalos gym badges, I'll be battling him at his gym and not his robot."
Serena had a curious look on her face. "You're going to respect the four badge requirement anyway? Even though Clemont removed that restriction from his robot?"
Nodding once in confirmation, Dawn explained, "It'll give us extra time to see more of Kalos, as well as stop whatever Team Scorn shenanigans that we come across. Besides, knowing the boys, they'll agree to wait as well." The girls then proceeded to settle down for sleep for the night.
The following morning during breakfast before everyone got ready to head out, Ash, Kenny, and Trip all agreed to the four badge requirement anyway. They also said that they wanted to battle Clemont himself, rather than Clembot. Clemont agreed, although he seemed a tad nervous to accept the challenge from Dawn when the time for it came. All in all, the heroes now had a game plan in mind and were ready to leave. However, after the boys got dressed, Meyer said that the girls' clothing still needed time in the dryer.
"But we were going to swing by Professor Sycamore's lab to see him before we took off from Lumiose City!" Bonnie said, "What will the girls and I wear?"
"Uhh, how about your Pokémon themed sleep outfits?" Clemont suggested, "It's not uncommon to see people wear them in Lumiose City in the daytime. It's actually something of a fashion trend." And so, it was decided that the girls would wear their Pokémon themed sleep outfits to Professor Sycamore's lab. Kenny snickered at the thought of seeing Dawn walk around in open daylight in her Infernape-themed sleep outfit, which promoted Dawn to tell her she'd do to Kenny what Ash's Infernape did to Kenny's shiny Scizor Cell during their battle in the Lily of the Valley Conference when they traveled through Sinnoh.
That made Kenny zip it.
...
Over at Sycamore's lab, the heroes met with Sycamore and, after explaining why the girls were in Pokémon themed sleep outfits, they talked about what they were going to do while Serena busted out some macarons she had made. Sycamore's assistant Sophie suggested making tea to go with the macarons, to which everyone in the lab agreed. After getting the tea made, they returned for the macarons, only to see they were all gone.
"Yo yo yo, where did all the macarons go?" Kenny asked, only to be answered by the sound of someone or something munching away on treats. Going over to look, the heroes soon discovered that a Chespin at the lab had taken all of the macarons and was now eating them.
"Nogla, return!" Kenny said as he aimed to recall the Chespin, but only looked on in confusion when Nogla came out of the ball he was aiming at what he thought was his Chespin. The named Chespin sat there on the ground, his eyes going in opposite directions, and he even stuck a bit of his tongue out.
Gesturing to the Chespin with the macarons, Sophie said, "Yeah, that's a different Chespin from yours, Kenny. That Chespin is a very gluttonous little fellow, and it doesn't surprise me that he'd steal all of the macarons and hide to eat them all."
"Chespin, those macarons are for all of us," Clemont said as he reached towards the thieving Chespin, only for said Chepin to stab Clemont in the hand with the spike on its head before trying to run off with the rest of the macarons. However, Nogla zipped ahead and turned to stop right in front of the thieving Chespin. Nogla's crossed eyes focused properly on the thieving Chespin, then his brows furrowed. The thieving Chespin was surprised to be cut off in his escape with his delicious plunder, but he knew that he couldn't slip past Nogla here. Not without sacrificing his goods.
As the thieving Chespin stood there, Kenny went in and took back the stolen macarons, eliciting an annoyed cry from the thieving Chespin. It tried lunging at Kenny, but Nogla lunged at the thieving Chespin and wrestled it to the floor. The two Chespins then wrestled with one another as Kenny got the macarons back to the rest of the heroes. "Hey Kenny," Ash said, "Shouldn't you command your Chespin in battle?"
Holding up a hand to cut off further arguments, Kenny said, "You underestimate the power of cringe that my Pokémon all run on, Ash. Trust me when I say that Nogla will have things wrapped up in-"
"CHEEEEEEEEEEEEES!" Nogla cried out, making everyone turn to see that Nogla had already defeated the thieving Chespin; Nogla had also gone back to its usual silly expression as he just sat there.
Clapping his hands together, Kenny said, "Mozel tov!"
...
After treating the injuries of both Chespins (Nogla got some scuffs but nothing serious), the heroes sat the thieving Chespin up and explained to it that stealing food from others is wrong. The thieving Chespin, looking guilty, sounded like it was apologizing but also patted its stomach. "It's probably a Pokémon instinct to gather food whenever it's hungry," Dawn said, "And this Chespin here probably just has a really big appetite for a Pokémon of its size."
"So what do we do?" Clemont asked.
Shrugging, Trip said, "Why don't you take the Chespin if Professor Sycamore's okay with it, Clemont?"
"Me? Take Chespin?" Clemont said, looking surprised.
"I think it's a wonderful idea," Sycamore said, "Clemont takes Chespin, Clemont keeps Chespin fed, everyone wins!"
Upon hearing that Clemont was going to keep him fed, the thieving Chespin perked up and turned to look right up at Clemont. Seeing the hopeful, sparkly-eyed look on Chespin's face, Clemont sighed and agreed to take Chespin. After Sycamore handed Chespin's pokéball to Clemont and he used it to recall Chespin, the heroes cheered for Clemont until Bonnie pointed out that not only are there so few macarons left, but they were all a bit dirty due to Chespin handling them. Luckily for the heroes, Serena thought ahead and actually had a second batch of macarons ready.
As the boys of the heroes ate the second batch of macarons, Serena admitted in a group huddle with Dawn and Bonnie that she actually made that second batch exclusively for Ash, but the Chespin that now belongs to Clemont necessitated for Serena to share the second batch with everyone. Dawn told Serena that Ash would be willing to share the macarons Serena made exclusively for him anyway knowing him. And so, with macarons eaten and Clemont getting a new Pokémon, the heroes were ready to make their way towards Cyllage City.
As the heroes resumed their traveling, the passed through a forest that had a lot of bamboo but no hostile Pokémon. Dawn suspected that there would be some, but she ultimately dismissed it as a change that came with isekai. Then the heroes came across an issue with a Pokémon poacher named Dolan, who the local Officer Jenny was having trouble wrangling up. Dawn, by having her named Lucario Leni use Psychic to levitate Dolan off of his motorbike which ended up crashing harmlessly enough into some bushes, then floated the caught Dolan right over to Officer Jenny, ending the poaching game for him.
The heroes then came across a girl named Penelope who challenged Ash to a battle, saying that if she beat him then he'd have to stay with her for a while, which shocked Serena. Ash agreed, and then Penelope sent out her Pokémon which was a Sylveon, which Ash had never seen before. Trip identified the new Pokémon to Ash, saying it's a fairy-type evolution of Eevee. Knowing that Sylveon is now a fairy type, Ash sent out his shiny Steelix as an answer. Penelope was nervous but decided to go through with the battle anyway. Sylveon ended up getting defeated by Ash's Steelix with one well placed Iron Head, making Ash the winner.
After Ash won, Serena with a surprising amount of annoyed fury demanded to know what Penelope meant by saying Ash 'would have to stay with her for a while', to which Penelope admitted that she works at a kindergarten and that she regularly goes out to find Pokémon to befriend and bring back for the little kids to play with. When the girl explained that, Ash asked her why she didn't instead simply ask for them to come along as they would have agreed, and also said he'd come along anyway if it was just so that Penelope could find some Pokémon for the kids to play with. Serena also breathed a sigh of relief.
The heroes were then led to the kindergarten where Penelope worked, and were prompted to let the kids there play with their Pokémon. Most of the young girls were not amused to hear that Ash beat Penelope in a battle when all she wanted was to bring back Pokémon for them to play with, but then Penelope explained to them that it was mostly her own fault she lost, also Ash and the others agreed to come along anyway. There was also an easily scared boy named Randall, but the heroes were able to eventually connect to him; it helped that Kenny was allowed to rotate his party to get Lin and Jibanyan into his party, and had the calm friendly kitties play with the shy young boy.
After that, the heroes continued their journey where they eventually had to seek shelter from a storm by going into a mansion. Some of the heroes got spooked due to thinking the mansion was haunted, and Kenny at one point threatened the mansion itself with Black if it didn't stop spooking everyone. Eventually, the heroes discovered that the mysterious happening were the work of an Espurr who was using its psychic powers to do everything. The Espurr had a pendant it wanted to give back to the kind old lady who gave it to Espurr in the first place, also the kind old lady took care of Espurr and played with it.
A young adult woman named Elise showed up, saying the mansion had belonged to her late grandmother Lacy, who died a while ago, and that there were plans to tear the mansion down as it wasn't being used and it was old. However, upon learning Espurr's story, she agreed not to tear the mansion and also she adopted the Espurr. Seeing Elise adopt the Espurr made Kenny wanna find an Espurr of his own. Elise lamented that another reason why there were originally plans to tear the mansion down was because her family couldn't afford to keep it, but on Dawn's suggestion Elise decided to find a buyer, selling the mansion as a fixer-upper.
Then there was some trouble resulting from Celmont's Chespin getting a tad plump in the belly, prompting Ash to work it through some paces and get it slimmed back down. It wasn't the first time Ash worked with an overweight Pokémon to help it get back into shape. That, plus some workout machines Clemont made up, helped to put the diet into Chespin and slim it back down. Then Bonnie had an adventure with a Pichu that accidentally got switched with Dedenne, but that all ended up getting resolved in the end, allowing the heroes to move on.
The heroes were getting close to Camphrier Town, their next major stop on the way to Cyllage City. However, before they got to Camphrier Town, they had a certain encounter with someone who would be of great help in the training of Ash's Froakie.
END, CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN
Author's notes;
This chapter focuses mainly on Celmont being revealed to be the gym leader of the Lumiose City gym, then having to reclaim the gym from his out of control robot, Clembot. With help from the heroes, Clemont gets his gym back and fixes Clembot's programming. Dawn and Serena also get Pokémon themed sleep outfits, which they had to wear to Sycamore's lab like Bonnie wearing her Tyrantrum-themed sleep outfit because the girls' regular clothing were still being washed. At the lab, Kenny's named Chespin Nogla deals with a gluttonous thieving Chespin that eventually goes to Clemont.
Then a bunch of episodes are skimmed over in favor of catching up quickly to content I felt was relevant. I would have gone straight to adapting XY018 to this story's setting, but before that is the espidoe where the heroes meet Sanpei the ninja, who I feel is vital given that he has a role to some degree with training Ash's Froakie. So the next chapter will open with some ninja nonsense before the heroes are able to get to Camphrier Town, which is the next major stop on their journey through the Kalos region. Stay tuned for more to come.
Dawn's Pokémon: (on hand) Chi-Chi (female Infernape), Levy (female Fennekin), Germany (male Garchomp), Argent (male Arcanine; alpha; Hisuian), Leni (female Lucario), Tsukune (Palkia)
Kenny's Pokémon: (on hand) Roshi (male Torterra), Jibanyan (male Skitty; shiny), Lin (female Purrloin), Nogla (male Chespin), Godzilla (male Tyranitar), Black (Giratina; Origin Form)
Trip's Pokémon: (on hand) Mr. Popo (male Magmortar), Veda (female Abomasnow), Myde (male Empoleon), Kululu (male Froakie), Deelia (Dialga), Fourze (male Electivire)
Ash's Pokémon: (on hand) Pikachu (male), Charizard (male), Steelix (male; shiny), Froakie (male), Fletchling (male)