Tavi fiddled with his new badge case as he waited for his dad to pick up the phone. Professor Oak had asked that he call him today and he had some time to kill before their scheduled meeting, so he thought he would check in with his dad. He and Charlie had celebrated yesterday once their pokemon were all healed up by getting badge cases and treating their teams to dinner. They had found a Kalosian restaurant that was pretty pricey but due to the big injection of cash they had gotten from winning their gym battles they could afford to spoil their teams.

Tavi had chosen a dark stained wooden case while Charlie had gone for a modern metallic chrome style. The stall owner, a portly chap with a balding head and puffy red cheeks, had offered an engraving service and Tavi had the Blackthorn symbol put on his. The man had used pliers to bend metal into the right shape before holding it out in front of his Growlith which breathed a steady flame on the brand until it was glowing cherry red. He had then pressed it into the top of the case before rubbing the entire thing down with Combee wax. It gave a charred outline to the blackthorn symbol and Tavi thought it was perfect. He looked up from the case as his father appeared on the screen.

"Tavi, Well done son!" His dad said beaming at him through the screen, "Taking down an Onix in your first gym battle. I wish I could have seen Brock's face" he said with a grunt, he was as much of a fan of Brock as Tavi was. Tavi had shot off a message to Clair and his Dad yesterday letting them know of his win. He had also sent a few choice words to Clair after she had set him up. He grinned when she had asked why Brock was sending her haikus about her bountiful blue hair. He had given the gym leader a bit of advice on how to "win" her back.

"Thanks dad, you should have seen Clash and Hebo, they were incredible" he went on to tell his dad all about the match, he gave a breakdown of his thoughts on what he could improve on.

"You could have prepared for that Alolan Geodude if you had done your research." His father said with a hint of reproach. "You won't always have the luxury, but you should try to go into a battle prepared, if you had looked up Brock's matches with water type trainers you would have seen that he has used that line of pokemon before."

Tavi winced and nodded, his dad was right, he should have looked into the recordings of Brock's matches. He got over confident thinking he had type advantage but he would need to do more studying for future gym leaders.

"You're right." he said nodding the point, his thoughts flashed to Hebo shuddering in pain "I won't make that mistake again"

Tavi was just about to talk about his ideas on the next stage of his training when he heard a fluttering commotion from his father's side of the call and a bundle of fluff and ears poked into frame.

"Noibat!" Tavi said "you kept it?" he asked, shocked to see the little bat pokemon. He had honestly forgotten about it in all the excitement of starting his journey.

"Yes this little thing has become quite taken with Titus and won't leave him alone. She constantly pesters him for training and it's been quite good for the brute" he said with a smile running his hand over the Noibat which purred at the attention. "This is my son Tavi" he said to the Noibat. "He was the one that rescued you from the poachers" the Noibats ears perked up at that and it rushed towards the screen chittering excitedly. Tavi laughed at the pokemon.

"Nice to meet you Noibat" Tavi said, smiling at the pokemon. His father had not had a new pokemon since mum… His smile cracked slightly, looking at the time on the screen he realised it was nearly time to talk to Professor Oak. "I have to go, Oak wants to talk to me about something, I'll call you when I get to Cerulean"

Nodding his dad smiled at him. "Good luck in Mount Moon son I'm proud of you" he said with a goodbye then ended the call.

Tavi dialed Oak and waited while it rang, soon enough the elderly professor was on the screen squinting at Tavi. "Good to see you Tavi, and congratulations on your badge, Brock is a tough rock to crack" he said with a laugh at his own joke.

"Thanks professor" Tavi said "did you get the notes I wrote up this morning?" he asked.

"Yes yes I have them, I have not managed to read those ones yet but the rest has been satisfactory" he said nodding to Tavi. "How is your Jangmo-o?"

Tavi gushed over Clash and talked about the battle. Oak nodded along politely smiling at the boy's exuberance.

"Well it sounds like you are coming along well with your pokemon." Oak said once Tavi had finished talking.

"Now I had a favour to ask you" he said "the Pewter museum is hosting an event for a new exhibit and have extended an invitation to the lab. Harrison Braidwood, the lead archaeologist for the exhibit, is a close friend. Sadly I can't take the time away to attend, I would have asked my grandson but he has moved on from Pewter already, I had another trainer that I sponsored this year but they have not been in contact. Would you be willing to represent the lab?" he asked, looking over his glasses at Tavi.

Tavi thought about it, as a researcher for Oak's lab it was perfectly fine for him to attend in Oaks place. He was actually going to check out the museum at some point anyway. He had seen the signs around town for the new fossil exhibit and he wanted to talk to some of the archaeologists. There were a number of dragon type fossil pokemon after all.

He told Oak as much and the man sat back pleased. "Splendid, I will let Harrison know."

"Do I get a plus one professor?" Tavi asked. Charlie would probably want to come and Tavi would not hear the end of it if he got to go to a private party without him.

The boys stood outside the museum looking up at the tall building. Its pink tiled roofs and tall impressive windows which made it stand out from the rest of the city, a beacon of colour in the otherwise grey and black roofed cityscape. Both boys had put on their best clothes which were not much different from their road clothes but they were clean and fresh. They walked to the door and were greeted by a man in his late fifties with thinning hair which was dyed a deep black. It stood out from the grey in the man's eyebrows and made it look like he was wearing a felt wig. The man was wearing a black shirt and trousers and had impeccably polished shoes. The shirt had a grey symbol of a spiral-like shell which Tavi assumed was a fossil. He looked down his nose at the boys, looking each of them up and down.

"I'm afraid that the museum is closed this evening for a private function" he said, his words were as polished as his shoes and he pronounced each word in a clipped tone.

"Yes we are here on behalf of Professor Oak" Tavi said handing over his dex which displayed their invitation. "I'm a researcher and this is my assistant" he said, getting a scowl from Charlie.

The man looked from the invitation to Tavi for a few moments before sighing.

"It appears you have a valid entry, please don't try to cause too much of a mess" he said with a sigh, standing to the side letting the boys inside.

Tavi looked around as they entered and was momentarily stunned. They were in a grand room with vaulted ceilings and massive windows. There was a wide marble staircase that ran along the back of the room splitting at the wall, each side leading up to a balcony that wrapped around the room. It looked more like the pictures he had seen of a Galarian cathedral than a boring stuffy museum. The fossilised bones of a monstrously huge accent pokemon was standing in the centre of the room, it towered up standing at about twenty feet. It had four stumpy legs, a long whip-like tail and an elongated elegant neck standing regally above the room. There were a number of fossils around the room but nothing as big as the specimen that dominated the middle.

There were people mingling throughout the room and looking at the various displays. The boys walked forward moving by an area where food was laid out on trays and waitstaff were busy ferrying out food from the kitchen door behind. They passed by a tank full of shellfish and a sign said "Steamed Corphish made to order" which made Charlie do a double take.

They just picked up a few snacks and a drink and then went walking around the room. Both of them fascinated by the fossils on display. Next to each of the fossils was a recreation of what the pokemon would look like, Tavi spent a lot of time looking at the ones that were part dragon type.

They had made a full circuit of the room when Tavi saw a familiar face, Elle, the woman with the Rhyhorn he had battled just before his gym match, stood to one side chatting with a few people. As if sensing his gaze she looked over and smiled when she recognized Tavi, excusing herself from the people she was talking to, she made her way over to the boys. Tavi introduced her to Charlie who greeted her with a muffled mouth full of food.

"How did your gym battle go?" she asked. Grinning Tavi flipped open his badge case which he had been keeping in his pocket.

"We both beat him on the first try" Tavi said, thinking back to Clash standing over the downed Onix, Elle nodded as if she expected as much.

"Craggie has still not forgiven me for the wash your Horsea gave him" she said with a laugh. "If you are still up for it we need a water type to wash the rest of the pokemon down at the quarry." Tavi was slightly confused by the request.

"Is that what you wanted me to do?" he asked "I am not going to turn down a job but why don't you wash them yourselves?"

"We can.." She said, before quickly snagging a passing waiter with a tray of canapes "Oo they have the rice balls!" She quickly grabbed a few from the tray before turning back to them. "We have water hoses we spray them down with every so often but the stubborn bounders hold a grudge." She took a bite of the food and her eyes gleamed slightly at the taste. "Getting them back to following commands after a spray down always takes a while." She said around bites, "If we have a passing trainer do it, then their grudge will go with you, and while they will grumble, they will still help out around the quarry." Tavi nodded. "We also have a budget for trainer jobs and if I don't use it I lose it." She finished turning and snagging a glass of champagne from another waiter. Tavi knew why he liked her now, his eyes flicked over to Charlie he was inhaling his food at the same rate.

Tavi was just about to ask about what species of pokemon they have in the quarry but there seemed to be a swell in the conversation around them before everyone hushed. Tavi looked around and saw that everyone was looking in the direction of the grand staircase at the back of the room. He looked over and saw an older man standing at the top looking down at the assembled group of people. He had a regal look to him with a strong jaw and and a straight back, the hair on his head was grey with thick eyebrows resting above clear blue eyes. Tavi was more interested in the pokemon behind the man however. It was similar in shape to the giant bones in the middle of the room although on a much smaller scale. It had four legs and a long elegant neck. It was a light blue in colour on the underside of its neck and body with a deeper blue pattern sprouting out from its shoulders. The pokemon had ice crystals running at even intervals along the sides of its body and beautiful shimmering frills stood elegantly along the length of its long neck. As Tavi watched transfixed by the beautiful sight they changed colour moving from a turquoise to a light peach and back the change happened as the frills rippled down the pokemons back, as though moving in the wind.

The mood was slightly ruined by a robotic voice blaring out Aurorus the Dinosaurian fossil pokemon..Charlie cursed red faced and fumbled with the volume button on his Pokedex. People around them were shooting him daggers and Charlie seemed to shrink into himself.

"Welcome!" The man's regal voice called out across the hall "To my new exhibit, what a wonderful sight you all make." He gestured around the room "What you see around this room are collections of fossils from all across the world. It is the collaboration of archaeologists from Sinno, Hoenne, Kalos, Galar and Unova. Who have worked tirelessly to find these grand specimens before you. It is through the hard work from the Society of Fossil Preservation that we are able to work together so closely, regardless of politics or conflict." He paused while there was a round of applause. "I would like to thank the chairwoman of the Sociality of Fossil Preservation, Cara Liss, for all of her hard work and dedication she has put into today." There was a polite applause while he gestured at a flat faced woman with a bobble cut of black hair. "I would also like to thank the Kanto league representative, Xavia Huston, for being such a good sport while we sorted through the mountain of paperwork to get these specimens into Kanto." Again there was applause and Tavi looked over to a tall slender man with thick black glasses and slicked back hair, who bowed in Braidwoods direction. "Of course a massive thank you must go to the Devon Corporation for the continued funding of our expeditions and the huge advancements they have made in fossil revival technology" His Auorus let lose a melodic sound at this clearly agreeing with his sentiment, he smiled at his pokemon before continuing.

"And although he could not make it here tonight I would like to thank my good friend Samuel Oak for his guidance and willingness to listen to a fellow old man grumble" he looked around the hall, his eyes briefly making contact with Tavi before moving on. "Years of work have gone into this exhibit, you won't find a more comprehensive collection of fossils in one place. Please enjoy the displays, I won't hold you back from enjoying them any longer. Help yourselves to refreshments our catering team have out done themselves this evening. Thank you" he finished, his hands clasped together and bowing. His Aurorus let out a cheer and shot a ball of ice into the air which burst apart and snowflakes gently fell to the ground much to the delight of the crowd.

"Well he kept that short and sweet" Elle mused "Normally old Braidwood can go on for hours" Tavi raised his eyebrows at that.

"You know him?" Tavi asked.

Elle nodded "oh sure we dig up fossils every now and then at the quarry and donate them to the museum. Harrison is a hoot especially after a few glasses of Torchic whiskey. You want to meet him?" she asked them . Of course he did, he wanted to talk to someone about fossil pokemon and who better than the leading expert. Tavi nodded enthusiastically.

"Follow me I'll introduce you" Elle turned to start moving through the crowd.

Tavi looked over at Charlie to see if he wanted to join but he shook his head

"You go ahead, I got something I need to do quickly," he said, looking over to the chefs and the seafood tank.

Looking suspiciously at Charlie's suddenly innocent face he narrowed his eyes but Charlie avoided making eye contact. He rolled his eyes and turned to follow Elle before he lost her in the crowd. She led him over to Braidwood, the old man standing to one side and sipping a drink in conversation with a man wearing the dress uniform of one of the rangers. His Aurorus was standing behind him placidly watching the event.

"Harrison " Elle said, striding up not caring in the least she was interrupting their conversation.

"Ah Elaine, how are you my dear?" he said with a smile clearly used to her brash behaviour. "I see you found the rice balls, I requested them especially for you." He gestured to the ranger standing next to him, a tall middle aged man with tanned skin and neat brown hair. He was clean shaven and had eyes that seemed to penetrate right through you. "I am sure you know Lieutenant Rufus" Tavi looked at the man's uniform and saw that he had a green band wrapped around his upper right arm, signifying him as the leader of the local ranger station. Braidwood turned his attention to Tavi, his eyes studying the boy.

"Who are you young man?" Braidwood asked.

"Tavi Blackthorn sir, I am Professor Oak's researcher." Tavi said, shaking the man's hand, he winced slightly at Braidwoods shockingly fierce grip.

"He said he was sending a representative, typical Oak always has youngsters running around doing the fun work, the old duff needs to get out of that lab more" Braidwood said. "Blackthorn you say, you don't happen to be related to gym leader Clair Blackthorn?"

Tavi nodded "Yes sir she is my sister" Braidwoods eyebrows raised at that.

"How is her Dracozolt doing?" He asked Tavi eagerly. Of course he would know about Clair's fossil dragon, she used it regularly for high end battles and it was part of her core team, the thing was a monster.

"It is doing good, I saw it in a gym match not long before I set off" Tavi replied,

"Fascinating creature, there is some contention between Galarian archaeologists and the rest of the community whether the fossils were incorrectly assembled before revival, the Galarians insist that they are in the correct configuration but I am not sure, if you talk to Cara this evening best not to bring it up she gets rather heated on the topic"

"Don't go into one of your lectures" Elle cut in just as Braidwood was taking a breath to continue. A rueful smile sprouted on his face.

"I could go on all day about fossil pokemon. I find the creatures fascinating. His arm reached up to rest on the long neck of his Aurorus. "And to think we only discovered how to revive them two years ago. Although revival is a term I'm not sure I agree with."

That piqued Tavi's interest "How are they revived?" he asked.

"Here we go," Elle said, rolling her eyes. Braidwood smiled at Tavi and, not needing any more encouragement, went into his lecture.

"Well it was work that started ten years ago but it was not until the discovery of Ditto on Cinnabar island that we were able to perfect the art." Ditto? Tavi thought with surprise, they were a strange pokemon that had the unique ability to morph into whatever pokemon they were facing. They had seemed to appear out of nowhere on Cinnabar island one day and had snuck onto ships to spread all over the world. Pokemon conservationists were not sure whether to class them as an invasive species as they actually had a positive effect on pokemon populations. They could breed with any pokemon and only had a ten percent chance of their offspring being a Ditto. They had been used to help struggling species of pokemon bounce back from the edge of extinction.

"You take fossils such as the ones dotted around this room, and extract as much DNA as you can out of them" Tavi nodded following along "Now using Ditto cells you can fill in the gaps in the DNA, leave it to incubate and after a few months you have a freshly hatched fossil pokemon" He smiled "This is a very layman explanation, there is a huge amount of genetic sequencing and trial and error to make it right, but we can consistently 'revive' pokemon now, although cloning is probably a better definition". Tavi nodded thoughtfully. "We also scale them down in size, we can't have twenty foot behemoths getting loose and destroying cities now can we. While we still keep them tall I'm sure that you noticed my dear Aurorus here is not the same as the impressive specimen in the middle of the room." Tavi had noticed and that was actually going to be his next question.

"And where do you find fossils?" Elle had told him they sometimes turn up in the quarry but he was sure you can't get them all from that, Tavi asked instead.

"We send out archaeological expeditions to places that we estimate have a high fossil density. Mount moon is one such place, in fact we have an expedition going next week. We are sending a team into one of the lower tunnels, they will travel into a deep part of the mountain to take samples and then make their way out to cerulean. If they find suitable evidence at the chosen dig site we will send an elongated expedition but this initial search is needed before we can commit the full resources."

"Won't it be dangerous in the lower tunnels?" Tavi asked. Most trainers stuck to the upper tunnels through the mountain as it was safer. The lower tunnels were not monitored by the rangers and largely left alone unless you were searching for a specific pokemon.

"Oh it is very dangerous, we are lucky to have a ranger escort, it was actually what I was talking to Rufus about, he is lending us some rangers as well as organising trainer escorts."

Rufus cleared his throat "Notices will be placed in the pokemon centers tomorrow" Rufus said, talking for the first time since Tavi came over, he had a very brisk voice. "We are focusing the request on trainers with pokemon that have type advantage over rock and ground types." He looked at the pokeballs on Tavi's belt "What pokemon do you have?"

"I have a Horsea and a Jangmo-o with the move counter," Tavi said.

Rufus nodded "That is a good combination, as long as you have one badge we would accept you on that"

Tavi thought about it, it would slow them down by quite a bit. They had asked around in the center and while the route through the mountain was very well travelled, it was recommended to travel in a group of at least three trainers. They had been planning on asking around the center to see if anyone wanted to join them.

He was hoping that they could make up the time they had to wait at Brocks gym by moving fast. But they would get paid to travel the route and travel in a group which would be safer, thinking about it more it was a pretty sweet deal.

"I will need to speak to my friend but I think we will probably sign up," Tavi said. He would not commit to it before talking to Charlie but he was sure he would agree with him.

"Give me the name of your friend and I will ask the expedition leader to look out for you both" Tavi wrote down their names on a napkin and passed it over to Rufus. Just as he did a group of people came over to claim Braidwood and the man was whisked off into another conversation.

Tavi said goodbye to Rufus and Elle and went to go find Charlie. He was walking over to the area with the food when there was a crash of plates from that direction. People muttered around him and he craned his neck to look above the crowd. All of a sudden someone grabbed his arm and yanked him down, he turned his hand flying to his pokeballs before he saw Charlie. He had a crazed look in his eye and was clutching a pokeball. One of his arms was soaking wet up to the shoulder.

"Um what just happe…" Tavi started to say before Charlie cut him off.

"We should leave. Right. Now" Charlie said, dragging Tavi through the crowd, trying to act casual. There was another crash coming from the kitchen as they walked past and Tavi tried to get a look in the door before Charlie yanked him on.

"What is going on in there?" he asked Charlie.

"It is Dusk. I needed him to make me a distraction" Charlie said, picking up his pace. "He is going to meet us back at the pokemon center.

Tavi looked incredulously at Charlie, "What did you do?!"

A/N

This chapter took a bit longer than I thought it would take. I decided to go for a more dialog heavy chapter to challenge myself and I am happy with how it turned out.

Thank you to all of the new people that found the story from reddit happy to have you along!

There was a question as to when this is set and I don't want to give too much away, but I am taking elements of the manga, anime and games and weaving them into my own story. While I am including pokemon from all regions, mega evolution has not been discovered yet, but will be showing up later down the line.

Again thank you for reading and all of the reviews!