Three days later, the temporary council chamber of Lumiose City had been partially rebuilt. The wooden rafters still bore uncleaned ash from the fires, but the room was already full.
AZ sat upright at the head of the table, Floette perched quietly on his shoulder, her presence softening the weariness in his face.
"The delegation to Unova has been selected," he said, his voice rough but steady, his gaze moving across the assembled ministers. "The team will be led by Minister Karen, accompanied by twenty elite guards and three craftsmen specializing in agriculture, architecture, and medicine. They depart in three days."
Karen, an elderly minister who had served AZ for decades and had lived through the catastrophe of Lumiose City firsthand, stepped forward. His white hair framed a face of quiet gravity.
"I will not fail in this."
"One more thing." Lucien reached for a Poké Ball and released Dragonite in front of the room. "I will have Dragonite escort the delegation. Its speed will cut the journey considerably, and it can handle any wild Pokémon encountered along the way."
Dragonite spread its wings slightly and let out a soft, reassuring cry. Karen and the others looked at it, and some of the tension in their faces eased.
Three days later, in the early morning light outside the Lumiose harbor, a line of carriages bearing the Kalos iris emblem waited at the dockside, loaded with seeds, medicinal herbs, and several Kalos-native Pokémon. Karen stood at the front of the procession in white traveling clothes, holding the diplomatic documents AZ had signed, and bowed deeply toward the royal city.
Then AZ appeared.
Everyone stared.
"Your Majesty, why are you here?"
"I am going with you," AZ said simply.
Lucien looked at him. "Are you certain? Kalos is still in the middle of recovery. Your absence could cause complications."
"I have handed all matters to my younger brother. He will oversee things in my place." AZ paused. "After what happened, I am no longer fit to call myself king. Once Kalos is fully rebuilt, I will abdicate. But until then, this is where I need to be."
Lucien considered that for a moment, then nodded without pressing further.
The group boarded the Kalos royal vessel docked at the harbor and set out, heading north across the sea toward Unova. Behind them, the Kalos coastline slowly contracted into a pale strip of green and smoke and morning light, until it was gone entirely.
The sailboats moved steadily if slowly across the open water. Karen stood at the bow of the lead ship, watching the ocean, while the craftsmen below deck attended to their seasick companions. He turned to AZ, who stood nearby.
"They say Pokémon assist with farming in Unova. I keep trying to picture what that actually looks like." He stroked his beard, his eyes carrying a mix of skepticism and genuine curiosity. "And they claim every commoner has food and land. How much of that can we realistically bring back to Kalos in the time we have?"
AZ's expression was thoughtful. "We will understand it better when we see it ourselves."
In a quiet corner of the deck, unnoticed, a small green Zygarde cell rested on a wooden barrel, watching the group.
Several days of sailing later, in June of year 152 of the Kingdom Calendar, a city appeared on the horizon.
"That is Castelia City," Lucien said, with a small smile. "One of Unova's most important ports."
As the ship docked and the delegation disembarked, Karen stepped onto the pier and looked up. The streets were wide and clean, the buildings intact and busy, the whole city moving with the particular rhythm of a place that had not been at war in some time. Castelia City's mayor, having received advance word, was already waiting at the dockside. The moment Lucien stepped off the ship, he dropped to one knee.
"Your Majesty."
"Rise." Lucien nodded, already moving.
The delegation spread out instinctively, drawn by what they were seeing. Along the roadside, a farmer was directing a Bouffalant to pull a plow through a field with practiced ease. Nearby, a Venusaur was using its vines to distribute seed across a prepared row.
Outside a workshop, a Charmander sat obediently beside a stack of timber, its tail flame turned low and steady, helping craftsmen dry the wood at a controlled pace. In the market, produce vendors worked their stalls with small, calm Pokémon seated beside them, alert and helpful.
Everywhere, ordinary people moved through the city alongside Pokémon, casually, without tension, as though this had always been simply how life worked.
Karen stood completely still and stared.
"Those Pokémon are helping people." His voice came out barely above a murmur. He rubbed his eyes, checked again. "Willingly."
He had seen the Galar Corviknight corps, powerful creatures controlled as instruments of war. He had seen the wild Pokémon of Kalos, which fled from people or attacked them without distinction. Neither of those things had prepared him for this.
When Dragonite landed in Lucien City's main square, a crowd gathered almost immediately, curious and unafraid. A round, cheerful Oshawott trotted up to Karen, pressed its face against his hand with a soft sound, and then produced a bright, fresh peach from somewhere and held it up to him with both paws.
Karen made a sound that was not quite a word.
"That," Lucien said, stepping forward and gently scratching behind Oshawott's ear, "is what partnership looks like. In Unova, every Pokémon is part of this community. They are not tools, and they are not threats. To the people here, they are family."
Karen accepted the peach. His fingers rested against the warm, soft fur of the Oshawott's paws for a moment, and something that had been cold and carefully guarded in him since the destruction of Lumiose City quietly loosened.
He looked down at the diplomatic documents in his hands, then back up at the city stretching before him, people and Pokémon moving through it together in every direction.
A genuine glimmer of hope entered his eyes for the first time in a long while.
Over the following days, AZ and Karen led the delegation through Unova's countryside and cities in turn. They walked the fields and watched the Tornadus-blessed crops growing in Landorus-enriched soil, observed Panpour and farmers working the irrigation channels together.
They visited the factories and watched Klink units assist with assembling agricultural equipment while Machoke moved ore through the mine passages.
They went to the villages and watched people and Pokémon build homes side by side, treat each other's injuries, and children playing in the open air with Pikachu and Eevee as naturally as breathing.
But the place that moved Karen most was a small rural village in the Unova countryside.
The villagers there told him that not long ago, this place had known serious hardship
The hardship of the past had faded. Now every household in the village had enough food, and every home was warm. Under an old tree at the village's edge, an elderly woman sat on a swing while a Wigglytuff gently massaged her back with a soft pulse of its energy. The old woman smiled and fed it fruit from her hand, her face entirely at ease.
"We used to be afraid of Pokémon here," the village chief told Karen. "Until His Majesty Lucien took the throne and sent people to us with a different message. That Pokémon were not enemies." He paused, watching the scene under the tree. "We tried getting along with them. Let them help with farming, with protecting the village. And gradually, everyone here became inseparable from these creatures."
Karen looked at the elderly woman and the Wigglytuff and thought, without meaning to, of Lumiose City in ruins. Of the people who had lost their homes and had nowhere to go back to. He understood, in that moment, what AZ had actually been seeking in this alliance. Not protection. A real path forward for Kalos.
AZ himself said very little throughout the journey. Floette rested on his shoulder wherever he went, her petals moving gently with his steps. He watched the Unova fields producing abundant harvests with Pokémon working alongside farmers.
He watched Pokémon and craftsmen moving in easy coordination through factory floors. He watched children running in the open air with their Pokémon in the afternoon sun. He took all of it in without speaking, and his eyes said everything.
This was the peace that Kalos had dreamed of and never reached.
In Castelia City, on a rooftop, a Zygarde cell observed the streets below. Everything it witnessed flowed back through its network to the cave where Zygarde's core rested. The God of Order received the images in silence.
Humans and Pokémon, living like this. No oppression. No exploitation. Simply companions, sharing a world.
After the devastation of Kalos, the region was saturated with distress and the residue of conflict. But here, Zygarde could not detect a single trace of that energy anywhere in the city.
"Lucien," Zygarde murmured to itself. "Did you build all of this?"
The delegation stayed in Castelia City for seven days. On the eighth morning, they prepared to continue to Lucien City. The Kalos members packed their things with visible anticipation. If an ordinary port city in Unova had reached this level, what would the capital look like?
"We won't be taking carriages," Lucien said, watching them pack.
Karen looked up. "Then how do we travel?"
Lucien didn't answer immediately.
Twenty minutes later, the entire Kalos delegation stood on the platform staring at the steam train, its steel carriages gleaming in the morning light, white vapor rising steadily from the engine.
"Your Majesty, what is this thing?"
"A steam train. Castelia City and Lucien City are separated by a great distance. By horse-drawn carriage, the journey takes close to half a month." Lucien paused. "This gets us there in just over an hour."
Karen stared at him. "An hour?"
His gray beard trembled slightly with the force of his breathing. Behind him, the craftsmen and guards from the delegation had gone completely still, eyes fixed on the enormous machine of steel and brass, its great wheels rumbling against the iron rails, steam drifting upward and dissolving in the wind. The tracks stretched straight ahead into the distance, a silver line disappearing toward something none of them could yet imagine.
"This is what science and technology make possible," Lucien said.
AZ raised his hand slightly, letting Floette drift forward from his shoulder. The quiet light of the Eternal Flower caught the steam and glowed softly alongside it. He looked at the train for a long moment, something in him that had been still for a very long time beginning to move.
He had believed, once, that the Ultimate Weapon was the greatest force in the world. He understood now that he had been wrong. What truly allowed living things to flourish was never destruction. It was this: mutual effort, coexistence, building something together.
"Please, come aboard," Lucien said, gesturing toward the carriage doors.
The Kalos delegation boarded one by one, apprehension and excitement in equal measure on every face. Inside, soft seats and wide windows waited for them.
The scenery through the glass shifted as they settled, already showing them a world that kept revising their understanding of what was possible.
The whistle blew. The train began to move, slowly at first, then with gathering speed, until the fields and forests and rivers outside were flowing color rather than distinct shapes, the wind a low sound against the windows, the ride entirely smooth.
Karen pressed his face against the glass, watching the landscape race backward, his hands trembling slightly on the window frame.
"This speed. If Kalos had this, reconstruction materials could reach every corner of the country within days."
AZ said nothing. He sat by the window and watched.
In the fields, Machamp lifted heavy bundles of barley for farmers without being asked. On the river, Pelipper carried packages between villages in steady back-and-forth circuits. At a village gate, a girl in a light dress smiled warmly at every person who passed through.
A world he had never imagined. Not once in all his long life.
In an unnoticed corner of the carriage, a Zygarde cell pressed flat against the metal wall, transmitting everything it witnessed back to the cave. In the depths of that cave, Zygarde sat upright, and for the first time in a very long time, something moved in its emerald eyes.
The negative energy was gone. The fires of war had gone quiet. Humans and Pokémon, no longer destroying each other, but making something new together.
"Lucien," Zygarde murmured. "What kind of world are you trying to build?"
The cells scattered across Kalos stirred simultaneously, feeling the tremor pass through the network.
More than an hour later, the train slowed. The doors opened, and brilliant sunlight poured in.
And there it was.
Lucien City. Several times larger than Castelia, its stone towers rising into the sky, its streets full of people and Pokémon moving together in every direction.
In the central square, a Kyurem statue rose from a pool of clear water. Pidove and Whimsicott drifted freely overhead. On the city walls, Espeon and Umbreon stood their quiet vigil, one for day and one for night. And at the center of it all, the Royal Palace.
"Welcome to my capital," Lucien said, stepping down onto the platform with a smile.
AZ descended after him onto smooth cobblestones, the smell of flowers and food reaching him at once, children's laughter and the bright cries of Pokémon filling the air in every direction.
Floette rose from his shoulder, circled him once, and her eternal flower blazed with a light brighter than Karen had ever seen it produce, as though the city itself had given her something to celebrate.
AZ raised his head and looked at the sun-warmed city stretching before him. His voice was rough, as it always was now. But for the first time, it was warm.
"So this is the future we should have been building toward all along."
Behind him, Karen and the delegation had stopped walking. Several of them were crying, quietly, without embarrassment.
They had only one thought among them.
They had to bring this back to Kalos. Every part of it. To their broken homeland, they had to bring this peace, this prosperity, this living proof that things could be different.
...
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