"Victini, how did my mother manage to bring you out of Eindoak?" Steven asked, genuinely puzzled.
It was something that had been sitting in the back of his mind. Even he hadn't been able to pass through the barrier while holding Victini. How had she managed it?
"Tili…"
Victini tilted its head and chirped thoughtfully.
"Victini says it doesn't know either," Diancie said from beside the bed, translating with practiced ease. "At the time, your mother simply held it — and they walked right through."
"That's all it took?"
Victini nodded.
Steven let out a quiet, helpless laugh. His mother was full of mysteries he suspected he would never fully unravel.
"Tili!"
Victini perked up suddenly, a bright grin spreading across its small face as it spoke again.
"Victini says we can call it Little V," Diancie translated. "That's what your mother used to call it."
"Little V…"
Steven glanced at the distinctive V-shaped ears on top of Victini's head, and the nickname clicked into place immediately. Of course.
"Little V," he said warmly, "the barrier around Eindoak has been destroyed. It won't hold you back anymore." He paused, then added, "Would you like to come outside with me sometime and have a look around?"
Victini went still for just a moment.
A memory surfaced — a young woman's face, framed by long, light-blue hair that drifted softly in the breeze. She was reaching out toward it with a smile.
"Little V, do you want to come outside with me and see what's out there? There's so much delicious food, and plenty of macarons — your favorites!"
Victini looked at Steven lying in the hospital bed, his smile patient and kind, and gave a slow, gentle nod.
Then, a beat later — "Tili!" — it shot upright and began waving both arms frantically toward the window.
"You want to go out now?"
Victini nodded eagerly.
"Tili!"
"Little V says it wants to go greet its friends," Diancie translated dutifully.
Steven wondered idly what Metagross made of all this. It had worked hard to learn how to write so it could act as his translator — and here was Diancie, filling that role without any apparent effort. Metagross must have had some thoughts about that.
"Of course, Little V. Go ahead." Steven smiled softly as Victini zipped through the window.
He thought he understood now why Victini had stayed in Eindoak after his mother vanished. The town wasn't lonely for it. There were old friends to visit, and new ones appeared from time to time. Yes, there would be sadness when people left — but there was warmth in the returning, too.
Steven turned his gaze to Cynthia, who was still seated at his bedside.
"Sorry, Cynthia," he said quietly. "For making you worry."
Cynthia gave him a flat look. "Have I worried you any less over the years?"
"…Fair point. Sorry."
Steven genuinely wished he could press his hands together and bow in apology, but his body wasn't cooperating with that plan. He estimated he had another day or two before the doctors would clear him for discharge.
"I've passed my work off to Lucian for the time being," Cynthia said, her tone softening. "So I can stay a little longer." Then she straightened up, hands on her hips. "I also need to make sure you don't go picking fights with any more Legendary Pokémon."
Steven made a face. "I wasn't picking fights—"
"At this rate, you'll have angered every single one of them."
He couldn't really argue with that.
"You were lucky this time," Cynthia continued, her voice firm but her eyes carrying something more fragile underneath. "If things had gone just a little differently, you wouldn't be here right now. And Xerneas won't always be around to bail you out."
"I know, I know — yes, Miss Cynthia."
"Hmph."
From the corner of the room, Diancie covered its mouth with both small hands, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter. Even after everything that had happened on this journey, it didn't regret leaving the Diamond Domain for the outside world. Moments like this one were exactly why it had wanted to come.
Two days passed quickly.
Steven was cleared for discharge, though his left arm remained in a white sling — a reminder he wasn't quite back to full condition. It was, at least, an excuse to avoid anything requiring two-handed effort.
During those two days, Cynthia had barely left his side. Worried that she wasn't sleeping well in the chair, Steven had shuffled over and made room on the narrow hospital bed. Cynthia, despite initially being too anxious to even touch him for fear of aggravating his injuries, had ended up sleeping very soundly once she settled in.
He didn't breathe a word of any of this to Joseph. When Joseph called to check in, Steven kept the conversation brief and casual, saying little more than that things were fine.
Meanwhile, Victini and Diancie had discovered a shared love of macarons, and the two of them spent considerable time working through a box together with great seriousness. It was, in Steven's estimation, a thoroughly reasonable way to spend a recovery period.
Steven's other Pokémon were recovering well. Empoleon and Skarmory would need more time than the rest — their injuries had been significant — but everyone's spirits were high. There was nothing to worry about on that front.
Cynthia accompanied Steven back to Mossdeep City in Hoenn. Along the way, Steven asked whether she was really alright being away from Sinnoh for this long.
Cynthia assured him it was fine. She had just settled into her role as Champion, and the workload was still light. Besides, she trusted Lucian completely.
Frankly, when it came down to it, most of the day-to-day administrative work of the Sinnoh Pokémon League ran through Lucian regardless. Steven felt a moment of quiet respect for that.
Once they were back in Mossdeep, Steven's mobility was still limited enough that going out wasn't easy. So Cynthia took Diancie and Victini with her on walks around the city instead. It wouldn't have been fair to keep the two of them cooped up indoors — that was barely different from Eindoak or the Diamond Domain.
Steven gave his own Pokémon only light exercises during this period. A bit of gentle activity was good for recovery, and they all seemed content with the slower pace.
After Cynthia headed out with Diancie and Victini one afternoon, Steven sat back and glanced across the room — then stopped.
Metagross was seated in the corner, holding a small, colorful book in one of its massive limbs and reading it with great focus.
"…Hm?"
Steven hadn't expected that. Metagross, reading? And from a book with that kind of cover?
He leaned in to get a better look at the title.
How to Speak.
Steven recognized it. His mother had read it during her pregnancy with him. He hadn't realized Metagross had found it — or that it would have any interest in it.
Then again, perhaps it made sense. Diancie had effortlessly taken over the translator role that Metagross had worked so hard to claim for itself through months of learning to write. That had to sting, even for a Pokémon of Metagross's composure.
Still.
This book is meant for toddlers.
If Metagross wanted to learn to communicate verbally, surely the more sensible path would be Telepathy — a technique well within reach for a Psychic-type of its power. Which brought up a separate, equally puzzling question:
Victini was a Psychic-type Mythical Pokémon. How was it that Victini couldn't use Telepathy at all? That was a bit like a Garchomp that had never learned Dragon Dance. It simply didn't add up.
"Metagross," Steven said, a small smile crossing his face, "instead of that book — why don't you ask Diancie to help you and Little V work on Telepathy together? She'd probably be happy to."
He kept the thought about Meowth — Team Rocket's Meowth, the one who had taught himself to speak human language through sheer stubbornness — safely to himself. The image of Metagross attempting the same was one he wasn't quite ready to picture.
"Metagross?"
There was a pause.
Metagross set the book down slowly. It considered this.
It had always been in the position of guiding others. The idea of being a student — of asking Diancie of all Pokémon for help — wasn't something it had seriously entertained before. And yet the logic was sound. Telepathy was the right tool for what it wanted. Diancie had the skill. And now there would be two of them learning together, with Little V along for the process.
Metagross gave a single, decisive nod.
It was settled.
Steven raised an eyebrow. He hadn't actually expected that to land so cleanly.
It's really going to try?
Well. With Metagross's raw intelligence… it probably wasn't impossible.
He supposed they would find out.