"Hello, I'm May, and this is my little brother Max."
The girl named May introduced herself somewhat reservedly. She had brown medium-length hair tied into a fluffy ponytail, paired with a red bandana featuring white Poké Ball patterns. Her red T-shirt, dark blue shorts, and white skirt gave her a slightly sporty look. The yellow fanny pack was tied around her slender waist. In terms of development, the girl indeed looked more mature than her peers.
Beside May, a boy about the same age as Lillie, wearing a green short-sleeve shirt and brown shorts with thick black-framed glasses on his nose, was excitedly staring at Lucas. His enthusiasm was almost overwhelming.
"I recognize you, big brother! Not only did you resolve the legendary bird incident in the Orange Archipelago, you're also the pinnacle of Trainers—a Champion-level! Not long ago, in the live broadcast of the Paldea region's Champion assessment, Nemona, who became Champion-level in just one year after debuting, was apparently your personally taught student!"
Even though his older sister kept quietly reminding him not to get too excited, Max couldn't hold it in at all. To him, who had dreamed of becoming a Trainer since childhood, Lucas's existence was simply legendary. And today, that legend was standing right in front of him!
Ash, whose excitement was no less than Max's, was also chattering away beside Lucas's ear. If Brock hadn't reminded him, the kid probably would have stood at the station exit and recounted every big and small thing from his travels in the Hoenn region.
What was Lucas's reaction to the group? He had already gone numb. Not only because he was about to be dragged into the movie plot's sorrow, but also because he had planned to get off the train a bit later to avoid them, only for Ash and the others to not follow the script. They had taken a wrong turn and barged straight into the business-class carriage, running into him head-on.
And so, he was immediately surrounded.
The only consolation was that Nemona's group really wasn't near LaRousse City. But life had to go on. Lucas sighed and, without making any exaggerated life-or-death gestures, calmly greeted everyone. Especially May and Max. This was technically his first time meeting the brother-sister pair.
Now that Misty had gone home to inherit the Cerulean Gym, starting from the Hoenn region, Ash's female traveling companions began changing one per region. Even from the Unova region onward, Brock had ended his travels, and Ash's male traveling companions started changing too.
While chatting, the group stood together on the escalator.
"I didn't really believe what Ash said at first, but I never expected the Delibird to really be your Pokémon, big brother."
Max, who was trying hard to find topics, looked at the interacting Pokémon with a somewhat emotional expression. During their travels, although Ash and Pikachu often challenged the Delibird and usually lost, this Delibird had helped them a lot. Like in the Mirage Kingdom incident, when everyone was at a loss, if not for the Delibird appearing to help, Misty's Togepi would have really been taken away. And in the Faern region that time, the Delibird had also helped delay the Earth monster's actions.
Now it made sense why the Delibird was so strong—it was Lucas's big brother's Pokémon!
"Compared to other Pokémon, the Delibird prefers exploring and traveling outside, tempering itself alone. That's why it's strong. It actually doesn't have much to do with me."
Lucas stroked the Delibird's head and smiled as he watched it interact with Victini, Terapagos, and Pikachu.
At this moment, the escalator brought everyone to the first floor. A robot composed of four small green blocks and one large block flew in front of them.
"Welcome to LaRousse City!"
A cute mechanical synthesized voice sounded from inside the blocks. The small blocks attached to the large one floated up with unknown propulsion and recombined above the large block, revealing a line of English text.
"WELCOME"
"What a cute way to welcome people!"
May's eyes lit up. She had no resistance to such cute things and almost stamped her feet while saying how adorable it was.
Ash and Max also sighed that it was truly a high-tech city—the welcome was done by such an amazing robot.
Only Brock looked a bit disappointed and said with some difficulty, "Personally, I think it would be better if a beautiful big sister came to welcome us…"
Victini and the others also looked curiously at the block robot. Even the now quite experienced Delibird was somewhat surprised. It had visited many human cities, but this was its first time seeing a city like this.
At that moment, completely unexpectedly by the group, a small green square box on top suddenly opened, revealing an internal camera. A cute voice sounded.
"Come on, cheese~"
Click. The flash went off.
"Eh?"
May was slightly stunned, her expression freezing into a somewhat comical look of surprise.
After the photo was successfully taken, the robot skipped her and proceeded to photograph Ash, Brock, Max, and Lucas.
Before coming, Lucas had specially looked up information about LaRousse City. He explained to the four dazed people who clearly hadn't done any homework: "The taken photos will be uploaded to the city's database, then used to issue individual passes. To live or visit in this city, you must rely on the pass. Things like the Pokédex or Navigator cannot be used as identification."
As if echoing Lucas's words, the block robot handed out the already prepared pass cards to each person.
"This is the city's pass. Whether you want to go anywhere or buy things, you can use the pass to do it."
The photo on May's pass was undoubtedly a car crash scene—it had perfectly captured her most embarrassing expression. She was almost in tears as she said, "Can't we retake it?"
That was obviously impossible.
After making passes for the five, the block robot busied itself preparing for the next passengers. Lucas watched it fly away and sighed inwardly.
Before he had crossed over, many netizens had jokingly called this thing the highest combat power in this movie. Don't be fooled by how cute this little thing looked. If many of them went berserk, the dense, locust-like swarm covering the sky could really make even Rayquaza suffer. It could only be said that humans dominating this planet was not without reason—some black technologies were truly outrageous.
"Bi~mi."
Victini clung to Lucas's shoulder, looking a little unhappy. It had thought it could get a photo too, but the robot didn't even look at it. This was Pokémon discrimination!
Because of the crowds around, Terapagos had returned to the crossbody bag on Lucas's body, only peeking out a pair of cute eyes to observe the surrounding environment.
At the same time, in LaRousse City's urban management command center.
A high-ranking Officer Jenny was monitoring the large screen in front of her, guarding the order of LaRousse City. When Lucas's photo flashed by as a registrant, the Officer Jenny with excellent memory immediately recalled what Professor Lund, one of the city managers, had asked her to watch for. Without hesitation, Officer Jenny immediately instructed her subordinate: "Contact Professor Lund right away and tell him that the guest he invited has arrived on time!"
In this city entirely composed of high technology, at least outdoors, no one had any privacy.
Lucas soon received a call from the person claiming to be Professor Lund. The call was directly routed to a convenience store near the station, and the store clerk ran out to let him take it.
Because the Battle Tower was famous, Ash had detoured to LaRousse City specifically for battling. Lucas had never planned to follow their plot anyway. With Professor Lund's call arriving just in time, he told the reluctant Ash, Max, and the others that he was going to meet someone who had invited him to LaRousse City and bid them farewell.
Standing in front of the steadily moving moving walkway, Lucas felt a little emotional. LaRousse City's style was really different from most cities. High technology was fully applied to daily life. Like the moving walkway in front of him, which covered almost the entire city. He wondered which genius had come up with the idea.
Also, he had just entered LaRousse City, and Professor Lund had called right after. It felt as if the entire city was under surveillance. Compared to the Skynet in his home country before crossing over, it probably wasn't much inferior.
Surprisingly, the meeting place Professor Lund had arranged with him was just an ordinary café. In this high-tech city, getting lost was almost impossible. Anyone holding a pass could ask the block robots on the roadside for help at any time.
After confirming the direction, Lucas directly stepped onto the running moving walkway. He didn't need to walk—the moving walkway would follow the planned route and smoothly deliver him to the destination.
"Deli!" "Bimi!" "Bagogo!"
The Delibird and the others also looked curiously at the rapidly moving belt below, their eyes filled with eagerness to try. They wanted to experience it too!
The two Pokémon that could already fly simply flapped their wings and steadily landed on it. Terapagos, however, needed Lucas to bend down and place it on the belt. The little turtle opened its bright eyes, feeling dazzled no matter where it looked—whether at the moving walkway under its feet or the surrounding scenery.
After a while, Victini, having had enough fun, was about to fly over to Lucas to ask for some snacks. When it flapped its small wings and flew up, it seemed to remember something and asked Terapagos out of pure curiosity without malice: "Bi~timi?" (Bagogo, can you fly?)
In Victini's view, if Terapagos could also fly, the success rate of it asking Lucas for snacks would greatly increase! Then it and Terapagos could fly on Lucas's left and right, acting cute. He definitely wouldn't be able to resist!
Terapagos hesitated for a few seconds, then finally nodded.
"Bagogo!"
It could indeed fly, but it couldn't right now—at least not here. Its species had the ability to absorb Tera energy from the surrounding environment and change forms. In the era it used to live in, because strong individuals in the species overflowed with Tera energy, Tera crystals formed everywhere.
For a not-so-strong Terapagos like itself to transform, it only needed to absorb the Tera energy contained in those Tera crystals. Before leaving home, it might still have been able to find a way using the Tera crystals that occasionally appeared in the environment. But now it was helpless. There wasn't a single bit of Tera energy in this environment, and the Tera energy stored in its body wasn't enough to support transformation.
The Tera energy in Lucas's Tera Orb might be enough to support it for a while, but that would be putting the cart before the horse.
Terapagos looked at Victini with some guilt. It probably couldn't meet its expectations…
The Delibird had also noticed the exchange between the two Pokémon. It had originally thought of simply picking Terapagos up and flying with it.
But it hadn't expected that after pondering for a few seconds, Victini would directly break into a bright smile, revealing its little tiger teeth, and make a "V" sign with its fingers.
"Bi~mimi!"
It had thought it was some difficult problem! If it was just lacking energy, that was nothing to it!
Victini directly placed its small hand on Terapagos's body. A golden aura rose accordingly.
Feeling the unprecedented abundance of energy in its body, Terapagos widened its eyes. Then, its body instinctively began to change. A strong light completely enveloped its body.
Lucas, who had just noticed their movements: "???"
Wait, what are you two doing!
Lucas admitted that when he saw Terapagos wrapped in dense crystalline light, he was stunned for a moment. Could Bagogo still evolve!? No, more importantly, how had it suddenly evolved?
But Lucas's confusion wouldn't affect Terapagos's "evolution."
Within the crystalline light, shiny blue mane grew from the ends of Terapagos's limbs, its neck, and tail. As its limbs spread, the shell enlarged out of thin air and massively crystallized, covering Terapagos's limbs. Only the small claws of the front limbs protruded from the mane. The shape of the shell was like a disk.
And on the back of the shell, eighteen dark blue pentagonal crystals surrounded a central hexagonal Tera crystal. Each pentagonal crystal was engraved with patterns symbolizing the eighteen different types.
After "losing" its limbs, Terapagos seemed to have directly mastered the ability to fly and floated directly in the air.
Lucas stared with wide eyes, looking at Terapagos's current posture in disbelief.
"…What exactly is this?"
The commotion here attracted the attention of other pedestrians on the moving walkway. Many people looked over and took out their phones, preparing to take photos.
"Bagogo—"
Terapagos was quite sensitive to gazes. Realizing it seemed to have become a bit conspicuous, it subconsciously let out a panicked cry and directly canceled the transformation it had subconsciously performed. Just like when Tera form was dispelled, accompanied by the shattering of the crystals, Terapagos returned to its previous little turtle form.
...
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