Ash looked out of the window of the hotel's window. It wasn't small, Lumiose City didn't really do that. Most of his Pokémon were still asleep, forming a small pile next to the bed, using each other as pillows. The only Pokémon who were awake were Garchomp and Talonflame who were competiting in an early morning race around Lumiose, and Pikachu who was perched on his shoulder, still tired, as he has yawning into Ash's ear.
From where he was he could see Prism Tower, the home of Clemont and the Lumiose Gym. He'd originally thought of staying there during the Tournament, it was open to the public during the whole Tournament, so teams who couldn't either afford or find other accommodation could stay in the city. From what he'd heard all of the Pokémon Centre's rooms had been filled in less than a day, which was impressive considering how many rooms it had.
His thoughts went back to his unfortunate meeting with the stubborn Psychic last night. She'd acted as if whatever reason she was there was more important than saving the world. He hated her, not only was she a Psychic, the natural enemy of Aura Guardians, who did nothing expect cause panic and disruption to us. Their relationship was like that of Zangoose and Seviper, or Durant and Heatmor.
Aaron hadn't given much about the past of the Psychic and Aura Guardians, mainly preferring to tell him about the past of just the Aura Guardians and what they'd done behind the scenes for the world.
That wasn't all the reason he didn't like the girl. He'd had to do a double take when he had first saw her. The medium length Honey blonde hair and her striking blue eyes weren't too different from Serena's. She'd dressed strangely though, not in a way that Serena would've. A purple cloak, not dissimilar to his own with streaks of white with leggings that faded from purple to black as it went down.
He was shook from his thoughts by a rumbling, almost impossible for a normal person to hear, but one that Ash had come to recognise, accompanied by an equally quiet, 'Tal'. His eyes went to the skyline as he saw Talonflame and Garchomp, approaching. He glanced down at a stopwatch in his hand and stood to the side of the window, allowing enough space for his competitive flyers to enter the room. Garchomp managed to fly in milliseconds before Talonflame.
"3:27.24", he read off, "Not bad at all. Was it 5 laps of Lumiose?"
"Chomp!", Garchomp told him excitedly.
"Nice. Not bad for 6. You lose count of how many you'd done?"
"Talon"
"Oh the first one was to build up speed. Our next battle won't be for another week. Too long but we'll spend today resting."
Garchomp and Talonflame had their way back to bickering to each other before laying back down in the pile, careful not to wake any of the others. Like their trainer they liked their sleep almost as much as food. As someone had once said about him they spent 33% of their time Training, 33% of their time sleeping and 33% of it eating. Not that that was a bad thing, it worked perfectly for the group and some like snorlax liked to cramp them together and eat whilst sleeping, leaving even more time for training.
"I'm gonna go out", he announced to the pile, getting a few mumbles in response. "See you guys later"
Ash quietly left the room, locking it behind him. He rubbed Pikachu's head lightly as the Pokémon fell asleep, putting him in a pocket on the inside of his cloak, which stored things like ketchup if the electric mouse ever woke up hungry.
He made his way down the hotels dull repeating staircase, eventually making it to the ground floor.
He walked outside, taking in the warm sunlight, and began to walk around, just exploring the vast city.
Whilst walking he looked up at the tall buildings, they were all similar, having the same pale white walls and roofs that were lined with a navy blue. The only differences from building to building were the balconies. There was an assortment of plants on some whilst others had seats and some were empty.
He took a step onto the city's North Boulevard, one of the only places where he could be sure where he was.
He wandered around for a while, seeing places he had visited other times he'd been there. He was about to turn back onto the North Boulevard when he heard a familiar and impatient voice shouting.
"Okay that's it. Thank you and we'll be leaving now!"
He saw one of his old friends, a ginger girl called Misty dragging another of his oldest friends, the former Pewter City gym leader, Brock away from a shop by the ear as a croagunk stood besides them, next to a Brunet man, Gary Oak, who was trying not to burst out laughing.
The sudden reappearance of his old friends made Ash smile, as he also tried to hold back laughter at his former travelling companions antics. He felt Pikachu poke his head out of the cloak's pocket, as the Pokémon had no doubt recognised the voice as he had.
He then turned away, walking in the other direction than he was going to, curious if further adventure was going to help him come across any more of his friends.
It didn't take long for him to come across May, Dawn, Iris and Cilan, all who were sat together at a café, May devouring food and nodding in agreement as Cilan talked about something. Iris was looking around, no doubt bored at the story that Cilan was telling. Dawn on the other hand seemed enraptured in the story, hanging onto Cilan's every word.
Serena was not having a good morning. First she'd woken up to Metagross stood in the middle of the room facing her which had caused her to scream and fall out of the bed, causing most of her Pokémon to wake up.
Then, whilst they were training, Mawile had decided to go rogue and had bit down on her arm, and she'd had to spend half an hour before managing to get him off of her, which had messed up the mornings training as she'd had to disrupt the rest of her Pokémon to get Vileplume to her to use Sleep Powder, which had been slightly too strong and had caused almost half of her Pokémon to fall asleep before she'd managed to get Mawile off.
Then, as she was sat in the Pokémon centre, waiting for her Pokémon to be restored, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor and one of her childhood friends, Calem had come in celebrating their victory. Not that that was the problem, she was happy for them. The problem was that she'd had to half hide herself from them, just in case they had seen her and recognised her.
The final straw was when she'd left onto Route 13 and played the Flute some time from the main path, to try and summon Mewtwo to help practise both controlling the Flute's power and her Psychic abilities. Not only had she not been able to summon Mewtwo but she'd played it that badly that she'd heard someone from the Route's path shout at her to stop it, and had also caused all of her Pokémon to cover their ears and hide.
She had walked all the way back to her hotel room, ignored at the wasted day.
She had layed on her bed, and allowed her mind to wander, and found herself thinking about Ash. That was nothing new and it was a welcome distraction from the rest of her horrible day.
Her thoughts had then drifted to the Aura Guardian she had met yesterday. She felt a twinge of guilt at her reaction to him. She had shot forward almost upon sight, disrupting his training. Something had been off about him. He had seemed familiar, almost like a distant memory.
She shot to the computer that sat on the desk and searched the Tournament's trainer database for Red. He seemed pretty normal, around her age with a large selection of Pokémon and not much information besides that.
She then searched further for the name, in any database but she couldn't find anything else about him. No league attempts, no collected badges or keys or ribbons. The only thing that reliably appeared was the same link to a website that described an ancient Aura Guardian of the same name.
She screamed in frustration at her inability to find anything. Turning the computer off and collapsing into the bed, falling asleep this time.
"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Who is this trainer?", a frustrated voice asked.
"Don't worry my friend", another responded, "They may not be a threat to us"
"And how would you know that G? You're the one who asked us to research any trainers who showed potential"
The second voice just laughed, "I don't. Most, dare I say all, trainers aren't anywhere near as strong as we are"
"We shall still be careful though.", a third voice said, "Don't you agree A?"
A fourth voice, A, mumbled in a agreement, "Of Course M. As Icy over there was saying it's that this is a major waste of time. Let me get out and train. That's much more fun than this."
"I am in agreement with G. We should research any unknowns, we need to win this. Then none shall be able to stop us" said a fifth voice.
"Yes yes, X. We are all aware of your love for research and you need not worry. We will crush anyone with the iron fist we shall rule with.", a sixth voice said, its source with a malicious smile, as if imagining destroying people.
"At ease C. We are almost done. From what we've seen we shall win at long last. Especially now that a certain Ash Ketchum is no longer here to stop us."
"Master Arceus. I don't understand", said Entei, stood with Raikou and Suicune, "Why should we travel to Kalos. Surely it is safe enough in the hands of Zyg… Squishy, Xerneas and Yveltal."
"I am afraid not. I wish for you all to go. Patrol the whole region and especially Lumiose City. That goes for all of you. I want you to stay in your Trios and watch out for the others.
Moltres, please take Articuno and Zapdos and take Northern Kalos. Entei, you take Suicune and Raikou to Kalos' East. Regirock, take Regice and Registeel to West Kalos, the terrain is most suited for you there. Coballian, take Virizion and Terrakion to South Kalos, you can take Keldeo if it pleases you. Finally, Landorus, please take Thundurus and Tornadus and watch from the skies. I shall reside over the other regions alongside the others. I wish you great luck on your endeavour."