Chapter 640: Blueberry Academy Students
~Azure S. POV~
[Unova Region, Castelia City – Narrow Street (Castelia Stand)]
We walked through Narrow Street, a slim alleyway flanked by towering buildings that made it feel like a canyon. Despite the cramped space, it was clean and filled with trendy cafes. I said curiously, looking at Amarys as we walked, "So… Blueberry Academy, huh? You guys are based in the middle of the ocean, right? Near Unova, but technically international waters?"
Amarys replied, giving me an explanation, "Correct. Our curriculum is focused heavily on double battles and competitive excellence. Director Cyrano has been… eccentric lately. He believes the 'Old Ways' of the Unova League are becoming stagnant."
I raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help but ask, "Stagnant? Alder's the Champion. He's anything but stagnant. The man is a force of nature."
Amarys corrected in a neutral tone while adjusting her glasses, "He is a wanderer. The Academy prefers structure. However, with the emergence of the 'Team Plasma' rumors and the shifting energy signatures across the region, we were sent here to observe."
My eyes narrowed. So, they were aware of Plasma?
In the original timeline of what I know, Blueberry Academy stayed mostly out of the Plasma conflict, but things were changing. I asked quietly, "And the Tera Balls? How are they holding up outside of Paldea?"
Amarys paused, reaching for the ball on her belt. Then she explained, "The synchronization is imperfect. Without the Terastal energy of the Paldean craters, the duration of the transformation is limited to three minutes. However, the tactical advantage is still significant. It was your research on 'Artificial Crystalline Infusion' that allowed the Academy to create the portable recharge stations."
I nodded. Good. The technology is moving forward.
*Knock*
We reached the Casteliacone stand. There was already a massive line, but Crispin walked right up to the side window and gave a secret knock as he whispered, "Hey, Marce! It's the 'Heat-Chef'!"
An older man with a stained apron poked his head out. He smiled as he said happily, "Crispin! Back for more? And you brought friends?"
Crispin smiled as he raised a thumb, gesturing to us, and said, "The best friends! Give us four of the Specials! Extra sauce!"
Within minutes, we were standing in the middle of a small courtyard, each holding a swirled cone of light blue and white ice cream. The first bite was a revelation—lemony, sweet, and incredibly cold, with a hint of a secret spice that warmed the back of the throat…
Oh, this is the good stuff.
*SLURP*
Gengar said, having manifested her own tiny cone out of nowhere (she probably stole a bit of mine), "Slurp! Oh, that's the stuff!"
Roxie said curiously, her mouth half-full of ice cream, "Azure. Seriously though. Why are you here? You've already won everything. Why the Unova League? Are you trying to prove something?"
I looked up at the sky, visible only as a thin blue ribbon between the skyscrapers. I said casually, "I'm not trying to prove anything to the world, Roxie. I'm here because I want to enjoy my journey and possibly learn a thing or two from the Trainers while training my skills as a Trainer."
Not only that, but also to ensure the plot of the Black and White Arc goes smoothly, as well as to protect the protagonists. Black and White were part of that balance. They were the protagonists of this era, but they were still kids.
My job was to be the mentor, the strategist, and the shield... And beat up Ghetsis. Mostly kick Ghetsis's ass.
*BEEP*
My Xtransceiver beeped. It was a message from White that said: 'Azure! We're at the massage parlor on 4th Street. Black's Eevee looks like a cloud of fluff, and Gigi is literally glowing! Meet us at the fountain in 20 minutes? We found some CRAZY outfits for the Gym battle!'
I chuckled, showing the screen to the others. I said casually, preparing to leave, "Well, it looks like my 'business' partners are ready to reconvene."
Amarys looked at the map on her own device. Then she said neutrally, "We shall accompany you. My data suggests that meeting the 'Agency President' would be beneficial for our cultural exchange records."
*TWANG*
Roxie laughed, slinging her guitar over her shoulder as she said excitedly, "Plus, I want to see who the 'Uncrowned Champion' traveling companions are!"
/////
[Unova Region, Later, Castelia City - Central Plaza]
The transition from the narrow, canyon-like quiet of Castelia Stand to the sprawling expanse of Central Plaza was abrupt, a sudden blooming of light and sound. The air in Castelia City carried the heavy, electric scent of a bustling metropolis winding down into neon-drenched nightlife.
Towers of steel and glass stretched upward, blotting out the twilight until only a narrow ribbon of bruised violet sky remained. Below, the Central Plaza was a hive of motion. The massive, tiered fountain in its center threw up arcs of mist that caught the multi-colored glare of towering digital billboards, showering the surrounding stone with a cool, shimmering spray.
Beside me, the three future leaders of Blueberry Academy—Crispin, Amarys, and Roxie—took in the neon-drenched metropolis with varying degrees of awe. Crispin's eyes were wide, undoubtedly cataloging every food cart we passed for future culinary reconnaissance.
Amarys held her tablet close, her fingers flying across the glass as she logged the regional energy grid fluctuations, while Roxie casually tossed a guitar pick into the air and caught it, her boots clicking rhythmically against the stone paving of the plaza.
The board was crowded. That much was certain. In this era, the Unova region was a powder keg waiting for a spark—Team Plasma whispering in the shadows, N wandering with his ideals, and the ancient dragons of truth and ideals stirring in their slumber. My job wasn't just to survive the Black and White arc; it was to steer it, protect the kids, and—let's be entirely honest—kick Ghetsis's teeth down his throat the first chance I got.
Then, a sonic boom of pure, unfiltered volume shattered my thoughts.
"HEY! AZURE!"
Black's voice cut through the hum of traffic and chatter like a physical blow, booming across the open square. Heads turned. Tourists stumbled. A businessman dropping his briefcase stared in sheer bewilderment as a fifteen-year-old boy in a ridiculous feathered cap bounded toward us, arms flailing like a windmill caught in a hurricane. Behind him, White jogged at a more reasonable pace, clutching a massive designer shopping bag to her chest, looking equal parts exasperated and amused.
*Thud-thud-thud*
Black skidded to a halt mere inches from where I stood, chest heaving, pointing wildly at his own head. He yelled, "LOOK AT THIS HAT! IT HAS WINGS!"
I muttered, letting out a long, slow breath as I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Oh, boy."
*Twang*
Beside me, Roxie doubled over, her laughter echoing off the nearby stone benches. She laughed seeing my traveling companion, "Hahaha!! Man, your friends are loud, Azure! Are you sure he's a Trainer and not a foghorn?"
Amarys adjusted the collar of her deep-blue Blueberry Academy uniform, her expression a mix of analytical detachment and mild alarm. She whispered neutrally to the open air, her eyes darting back and forth between Black and the sprawling architecture. Apologies. I believe the volume levels of your companion have exceeded the safety threshold for human ears."
I grinned, stepping forward as Black finally registered the three teenagers standing behind me, stating, "Get used to it, Amarys. That's how Black is."
The introductions were, predictably, a disaster of cultural whiplash.
Black dropped his arms the moment he noticed the three teenagers standing behind me. His dark eyes flicked from Roxie's spiked choker and electric-pink hair to Crispin's grease-stained chef's apron, and finally landed with clinical intensity on Amarys's immaculate, high-tech Blueberry Academy blazer.
Black reached up, grabbed the brim of his winged hat, and pulled it down until his nose nearly touched the fabric. He said, his brow furrowing into a complex knot of profound confusion, "Wait… Hold on. Are you guys from a ship? Did you come out of a submarine? Why does your uniform look like it belongs on the bridge of a spaceship?"
Amarys replied with glacial composure, her posture stiffening into parade rest, "It is not a spaceship. It is the official uniform of Blueberry Academy. We are in the international waters of the Unova region, constructed entirely upon a modular aquatic platform accessible via an underwater high-speed transit tunnel."
Black stared at her. His mouth opened slightly. The gears inside his head—usually reserved for obsessing over the Unova League badge count or calculating type-matchups—visibly ground to a halt.
Black repeated slowly, "An underwater… tunnel?"
His eyes glazed over for a fraction of a second, the classic warning sign that his brain was about to blue-screen from sheer mental exhaustion. Then he asked curiously, "Is there a gym down there? Does the submarine have a Gym Leader? What type do they specialize in? Is it Water? No, wait, if it's an academy, do they use textbooks or do they just battle until the textbooks catch fire?"
Amarys continued, entirely unbothered by his impending psychological collapse, "Our curriculum places a primary emphasis on double battles and competitive excellence. We find the traditional single-battle structure of the Unova Gym circuit to be historically constrained."
Roxie barked, puffing her chest out with an indignant huff, "Hey! Watch it!"
*THWACK*
She slung her bass guitar forward, letting the strap catch on her shoulder with a sharp thwack. Roxie boasted proudly, "What's that supposed to mean, 'historically constrained'? My old man runs the Virbank City Gym, and let me tell you, there's nothing constrained about a wall of pure Poison-type noise! I'm gonna inherit that Gym one of these days, and when I do, we're gonna blow the roof off this whole region!"
Black blinked, the fog clearing from his eyes just enough for him to latch onto a familiar name. He exclaimed loudly, "Virbank? Oh! Yeah! Roxie! I know you! You play bass in that band—the one with the drums that sound like a stampede of Tauros! You guys played near the harbor last month!"
Roxie grinned, crossing her arms and looking immensely proud, "Damn right we did! And don't you forget it!"
White, meanwhile, had finally managed to set her designer bags down on the stone bench beside the fountain. She stepped forward, her entrepreneurial instincts kicking in immediately as she surveyed our new additions with a calculating, professional eye.
White murmured, tapping her chin with a manicured fingernail, "An international academy specializing in double battles…"
Her eyes darted from Amarys's crest to Crispin's apron, then to Roxie's guitar. She exclaimed happily as she made her pitch, "Wait. Are you guys part of the delegation? The ones Director Cyrano sent over for the regional cultural exchange program? Oh! This is amazing for the Agency! Think of the cross-promotional potential! A battle-focused culinary student, an elite tactical scholar, and a rising punk-rock Gym Leader—if we put you all in a commercial for the Castelia musical theater, ticket sales would skyrocket by at least three hundred percent!"
Amarys started, before trailing off as White aggressively thrust a business card into her hand, "We are not actors, Miss…"
White beamed, her previous embarrassment vanishing entirely beneath the weight of networking opportunities. She said happily in a professional tone, "White! President of the BW Agency! And this is Black, who is currently hallucinating about underwater gym leaders."
Black protested, pointing an accusing finger at the sky, "Hey, I'm not hallucinating! I'm just processing tactical data! Speaking of which—Azure, are all the Blueberry kids participating in the Gym Circuit? Because if they are, I'm going to have to fight every single one of them before the week is over, and my schedule is already packed with three different training sessions for Tep and Musha!"
Crispin laughed, pulling a fresh, foil-wrapped snack bar out of his pocket and ripping it open with his teeth. He explained proudly, puffing his chest out, "Yeah, man! Me and a few other students—plus some exchange kids who wandered all the way over from Paldea—are trying out the Unova circuit. Cyrano wanted us to broaden our horizons. See how real trainers operate outside the lab."
*Shiver*
I felt a sudden, cold drop of ice-water slide straight down my spine.
Paldea students…
The word hung in the neon-lit air between the skyscrapers like a physical weight. My mind instantly conjured the image of a certain hyperactive champion who treated every conversation like a preamble to a Pokémon battle.
I said slowly, my voice dropping an octave as a cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck, "Wait… Crispin. When you say Paldean students… are you talking about one specific person? Someone who runs around like she's permanently stuck on fast-forward and treats geography like a suggestion?"
Crispin blinked, chewing thoughtfully on his snack bar. He replied, "Oh, you mean Nemona? Yeah, she's here. She took the student exchange program as an excuse to scout out new opponents across different regions. Said something about wanting to find someone who wouldn't break after two turns."
I closed my eyes. I let out a long, slow sigh through my nose.
Of course she is.
I had beaten four regional leagues and stared down the jaws of a falling meteor, but none of that—none of it—compared to the relentless, soul-crushing terror of Nemona's boundless enthusiasm for battling.
Before I could even voice my existential dread, a blur of motion streaked across the central plaza. It was moving at a velocity that defied both municipal safety codes and the laws of physics as she yelled, "AZURE-KUN!"
I started, "Oh, no—"
*CRASH*
The impact felt less like a human greeting and more like a high-speed collision with a runaway Tauros cart. A pair of strong, athletic arms wrapped around my neck with bone-crushing force, nearly sending my backpack flying into the fountain. A shock of hair brushed against my cheek, smelling faintly of citrus and the ozone-heavy breeze of the Paldean highlands.
Nemona practically screamed into my ear, her voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated joy as she squeezed the remaining air out of my lungs, "I FOUND YOU! Oh, man, I've been looking all over Castelia City for the last three hours! The buildings here are so tall, I thought I was trapped in a giant maze! But then I saw your Pikachu on that guy's shoulder, and I was like—BAM—there's my favorite partner!"
I groaned; my face pressed firmly against the shoulder of her Paldean Academy blazer. I wheezed, "Nemona… ugh… Please…. My ribs… I don't need to be hospitalized by my own corporate associates."
She finally released me, though she immediately grabbed both of my shoulders and started shaking me back and forth with terrifying vigor. Her eyes sparkled with stars as she said excitedly, "Aw, don't be like that! I heard you were doing the Unova League! The Unova League! Can you believe it? When Chairman Cyrano mentioned the cultural exchange program, I begged Geeta to let me come! And she said yes, if I promised to represent the Academy properly!"
I wheezed, managing to pry her hands off my shoulders and stumble backward half a step. I replied firmly, "Whew… By which she meant she sent her most dangerous Elite Four-level trainer to casually sweep through the regional tournament and make the local kids question their life choices."
Nemona laughed, flashing a brilliant, blindingly confident grin, confessing, "Well, duh! What's the point of crossing an ocean if you aren't going to test your skills against the best? But seriously, what are the odds of running into you here? It's like fate, Azure! A destiny-level coincidence!"
I muttered, adjusting my jacket while Pichu (Mew) peeked its tiny head out from the lining to blink curiously at Nemona with an innocent expression, "It's not a coincidence. It's a corporate conspiracy."
To say that the rest of the group was stunned would be an understatement of catastrophic proportions. Black's jaw was literally unhinged, his mouth hanging open so wide a rogue Pidove could have nested in it. His winged hat had tilted completely sideways, hanging off his left ear like a dying bird.
White had frozen mid-gesture, her designer shopping bag clutched to her chest as her brain desperately tried to cross-reference Paldean administrative law with Unovan league regulations. Amarys was staring at Nemona with a mixture of profound shock and academic betrayal, her fingers flying across her device as she cross-referenced the girl's registry data with Blueberry Academy's guest logs.
Even Roxie looked momentarily speechless, her bass guitar slipping an inch down her shoulder before she caught it with a reflexive twitch. Black finally managed to choke out, pointing a trembling finger between Nemona and me, and asked in confusion, "Wait… You… you know her? Is she from Paldea? The region on the other side of the planet? And she just tackled you like you're old roommates?"
I corrected in a weary tone whilst wiping a nonexistent speck of dust off my sleeve while regaining my breath, "We're old business partners. Her father handles the regional distribution for Rotom Phones in the southern provinces. We've done business together. And by 'business,' I mean she occasionally drops by to demand a Pokémon battle until one of us passes out from exhaustion."
Nemona chirped, turning around with cheerful disregard for the existential crisis she had just induced in the local protagonists. She offered a crisp, enthusiastic wave to Black, White, Roxie, Crispin, and Amarys, saying cheerfully, "Nice to meet you all! I'm Nemona! I'm currently serving as a student representative, a casual trainer, and—according to Azure—an existential threat to the Unova League standings!"
White repeated in a small, fragile voice. She turned her head slowly to look at me, her blue eyes wide. She asked me cautiously, "An… an existential threat. Azure. Is she joking? Please tell me she's joking…!"
I said flatly, looking out across the bustling plaza as the streetlights cast long, dramatic shadows against the towering glass facades of the city, "She's not joking, White. But she's a friendly girl to be around if you ignore her Battle Manic attitude."
Nemona protested, "Hey!"
The sun was nearly gone now, leaving behind a bruised indigo sky dotted with the faint, cold points of early stars. Around us, Castelia City hummed with the endless, frantic energy of millions of lives intersecting at once—trainers, researchers, musicians, corporate executives, and ordinary people just trying to find their way home.
Soon enough, I watched Black suddenly burst into a wild, frantic argument with Nemona about who had the faster Pokémon. They seem to be becoming good friends, judging from their eager expressions.
I like that look, if only the bad guys don't ruin the new generation. Tch… Let Team Plasma march. Let the ancient dragons wake from their deep, stone sleep beneath the soil. Let them awaken their plans.
I'd beaten legends once already. I was more than ready to do it again here, with a stupidly loud protagonist on my left, a terrifying Paldean battle-maniac on my right, and a whole region waiting to see what kind of future we were going to carve out of the dark.
Black yelled across the plaza, his voice booming over the sound of the fountain as he threw his arm around Nemona's shoulders like they'd been friends for a decade. He said happily, "Hey, Azure! She says she wants a double battle right now! Right here! In the middle of the street! Can we use the fountain as a battlefield boundary?"
I sighed, though a slow, sharp grin spread across my face as I stepped forward into the neon glow. The world is not ready for this Unova League Tournament with Nemona, Blueberry Students, and Black here.
But things just got more interesting…
/////
A/N: Hope you like the chapter!