Walking through Lucien City, looking down at the clean cobblestone streets and the busy, vibrant life surrounding them on every side, the Kalos delegation moved in a kind of stunned silence. Then someone looked up and pointed.
Several figures were gliding across the sky above the city. Not birds. Sturdy, well-crafted passenger compartments suspended beneath large Pokémon, moving smoothly through the air as the Pokémon beat their wings in steady, unhurried strokes.
"What are those?" a young craftsman exclaimed. "Pokémon being used as transport? And they look so calm about it?"
"Pokémon taxis," Lucien said, in the tone of someone describing something entirely ordinary. "In Lucien City, anyone can use them, commoner or noble alike. Pay the fare, and they'll carry you safely to any part of the city."
AZ tilted his head back and watched one pass overhead, Floette sitting on his shoulder with her petals trembling gently in the wind.
He had seen what Galar did with Pokémon: turn them into weapons, condition them for war. He had seen wild Pokémon in Kalos flee or attack at the sight of people. He had never seen anything like this.
Trust given freely, in both directions. Pokémon and people, on equal ground, going about a shared life together.
Unova had taken the power of Pokémon further than he had believed possible. And it had done it without force.
The group had set out from Castelia at dusk, and by the time they reached Lucien City, the sky had deepened into evening. Before they had fully recovered from the sight of the Pokémon taxis, the city began to change around them. The light faded from the sky, and then, almost immediately, something else replaced it.
The crystal lamps along the building pillars came on.
Warm white light spread down every street in one quiet, simultaneous bloom.
Karen stepped forward, his gray beard trembling.
"Lamps? Are those lamps? There's no kerosene, no candles. How are they lit?"
"Electric lights," Lucien said, gesturing toward the power generation facilities visible in the distance. "Powered by electricity, generated with the help of Electric-type Pokémon."
Karen stared at him.
"In Unova, night is no longer something to fear. Ordinary people's homes have electric lights. Children can read after dark. Craftsmen can keep working through the evening."
The Kalos craftsmen went very still when they heard that. In their homeland, only the mansions of the nobility burned lights through the whole night. Common people survived by the dim glow of oil lamps. Those at the bottom of the social order were not even permitted lamps. They endured the long nights in darkness.
And here, this light was available to everyone.
Some of the delegation could not help the expressions that crossed their faces. A thought formed in more than one of them, quietly and without being spoken aloud: how remarkable it would be to live somewhere like this.
"It's getting late," Lucien said. "Everyone rest tonight. Tomorrow I'll arrange a proper tour of the city." He glanced at Elif, who had come out to meet them, and gave a small nod.
"This way, please," Elif said warmly, stepping forward.
The group followed, looking in every direction as they walked. The ground beneath their feet was smooth and even, free of puddles and refuse.
The shops along the street had not closed for the night. Through the windows, a waiter smiled at his customers while his Magmar grilled meat at a steady, controlled flame. In the fields at the city's edge, farmers and Machamp walked home together, tools over their shoulders, talking.
City laborers and Machoke sat side by side during a break, sharing bread, one of them clapping the other on the shoulder.
One of the Kalos craftsmen, a man who had grown up in the mines, watched all of this and felt something shift in his chest that he did not have a word for.
In Kalos, people like him were property. The private holdings of the nobility. Their lives worth nothing beyond their labor, and their labor rewarded with beatings and hunger. Here, the most ordinary person walked with their head up. Ate enough. Dressed warmly. Lived with dignity.
People and Pokémon worked together, rested together, and seemed to simply regard each other as part of the same life.
Was this the human world, or something else entirely?
AZ moved quietly through the crowd, his gaze moving from face to face.
Open pathways. The long night made bright by steady light. Taxis moving freely overhead. He had been the King of Kalos. He had wielded the power of life and death. He had owned countless slaves, lived in magnificent palaces, and built a weapon capable of erasing everything.
He had believed that was power.
He understood now that he had been wrong about what power meant.
A truly powerful nation was not measured by its weapons or its slaves. It was measured by whether every citizen lived with dignity, every Pokémon was treated with care, and every piece of land was given the conditions to grow something worth having.
Floette drifted down and settled in his palm, her petals brushing his fingertips.
AZ looked at her, and then back up at the city around him, and when he spoke his voice carried a tremor that had not been there before.
"Were we wrong? All this time, were we wrong?"
Lucien stood beside him and spoke quietly.
"No one is entirely wrong. And Kalos still exists. Its people still exist. As long as they are willing to let go of destruction and oppression, to learn to live alongside Pokémon, to give their people freedom and dignity, Kalos can become something like this."
On the roof of a nearby building, unnoticed, a Zygarde cell lay still and transmitted everything it witnessed back through the network.
In the depths of the cave, the vast form of Zygarde opened its eyes. A faint green light moved through its body, but it was not the hard, warning light of a guardian preparing to intervene. It was something quieter than that.
Something closer to the feeling of a long-held tension finally beginning to ease.
For thousands of years, this land had known war driven by greed and hatred, the repeated tragedy of humans and Pokémon destroying each other, the endless cycle of negative energy accumulating until something broke.
Zygarde had always believed, on some fundamental level, that humanity was the source of the disorder it spent its existence trying to contain.
Lucien had, through nothing more than the way he chose to live and the world he chose to build, made that belief feel uncertain.
Humans and Pokémon did not have to be adversaries. They could be companions. Family. They could build something together that was worth protecting.
Perhaps that was the order this land had always been meant to have.
Perhaps that was what Zygarde had been waiting for, across all those thousands of years, without knowing it.
The night deepened, and the lights of Lucien City shone across every street and building like something pulled from the sky and set carefully down.
Elif led the Kalos delegation through the winding city toward the embassy district, the scenery at every turn producing a new reaction from someone in the group.
Passing through a bustling town square, the delegation caught a glimpse through a half-open wooden door and paused.
Inside a small, well-lit room, a family of three sat around a wooden table. The father relaxed in his chair with a drowsy Growlithe resting against his leg. The mother worked quietly with needle and thread, a Skitty curled at her feet.
At the end of the table, a child sat writing by the electric light, a small Pichu dozing on his shoulder. No hierarchy between owner and tool. Just warmth, and the quiet companionship of people and Pokémon sharing an ordinary evening.
An elderly craftsman from the Kalos delegation stood at the door and stared, his eyes reddening. He said nothing.
Elif noticed the group had stopped. He turned and spoke, his voice unhurried.
"In the Unova Kingdom, Pokémon have never been tools. They help when help is needed, offer comfort when someone is tired, and stand with us when danger comes. Humans and Pokémon live together, depending on each other. That is simply how time passes here."
The words landed heavily. AZ and several of the ministers stood very still.
They had spent their entire lives believing that the power of Pokémon existed to be weaponized, to consolidate authority, to crush enemies.
And here that same power was being used for the most ordinary things imaginable: keeping a house, chasing away pests, sitting quietly beside a child doing their homework. Power, transformed entirely into gentleness.
A way of living that none of them had ever thought to imagine.
They continued on to the embassy district, a row of clean, well-kept wooden courtyards that were simpler than the royal palace in Lumiose City but brighter, warmer, and full of flowers growing in the courtyard soil.
"This is the accommodation Unova has prepared for our guests," Elif said, pushing open the gate with a smile. "Your meals and daily arrangements will all be handled. Tomorrow morning, a guide will take you through Unova's farmland, factories, and medical facilities. Please rest well tonight."
Karen stepped forward at once. "Thank you, Mr. Elif. And please pass our gratitude to His Majesty Lucien."
As the group brought their things inside and began to settle, quick footsteps approached from outside. The door opened to reveal a maid carrying a lunchbox, a Heracross walking alongside her, helping to carry the load with calm, easy strength.
"Your dinner," the maid said, setting the box on the table and lifting the lid. Steam rose from grilled meat, fresh vegetables, and several bowls of thick, fragrant soup.
AZ looked at the bowl set in front of him. Beside him, Floette dipped toward it curiously and let out a soft sound.
The royal banquets of Kalos had been lavish. But they had never felt like this. And for the lowest class of people in Kalos, a full meal had never been something to take for granted at all.
Noticing the delegation's eyes on Heracross, the maid smiled. "This is Heracross. Strong and dependable, it helps me carry supplies and water the garden. My best assistant."
Heracross seemed to understand. It narrowed its eyes and looked pleased with itself.
Karen watched it and felt a wave of emotion that surprised him.
The coexistence of humans and Pokémon in Lucien City was not a policy. It was simply how people lived here, in every street, every home, every ordinary moment.
The lights outside burned steadily as the night deepened. The Kalos delegation sat around the table and ate their hot meal together. AZ looked at the scene around him, then at the glowing city through the window, and spoke quietly to Karen and the craftsmen at the table.
"Tomorrow, we go to the countryside. I want to see how the people here actually live and work alongside Pokémon."
Karen nodded, her eyes clear with resolve. "Yes, Your Majesty."
The next morning, the streets of Lucien City were already alive at dawn.
No soldiers shouting orders. No sound of forced labor. Instead, the bright cries of Pokémon, the relaxed calls of small merchants opening their stalls, the easy greetings of people passing each other in the street.
Elif was waiting outside the embassy with a group of officials covering agriculture, architecture, industry, and public welfare. Each of them had a Pokémon of their own nearby.
"Your itinerary for today is arranged," Elif said pleasantly. "We begin in the central farmland outside the city, where you can see how Pokémon partnership produces the harvests you've been hearing about. Please, follow me."
The Kalos delegation had barely slept. None of them looked tired.
They finished breakfast quickly and followed Elif out to the city's edge, where Lucien had arranged steam-powered vehicles for the journey rather than walking carts or horse carriages.
The machines moved forward on their own, driven by boilers and gears without any animal pulling them. The Kalos members gripped their seats and stared at the road ahead with expressions that were becoming familiar.
Less than half an hour later, an enormous golden field opened before them.
The wind moved through it in long, slow waves. The rice stalks swayed and the smell of ripening grain filled the air in every direction. And throughout the field, Pokémon and farmers worked side by side in easy, practiced coordination.
Landorus drifted above, spreading its energy in steady pulses to keep the soil fertile and loose. Panpour stood at the irrigation channels, sending precise streams of water across every dry patch without being directed.
Small Oddish moved through the rows, taking root briefly in the soil, filtering the air, helping the crops along.
People and Pokémon bent over the same rows together, wiped sweat from their faces at the same time, and looked out at the nearly ripe barley with the same quiet satisfaction.
Karen stroked his beard slowly, his voice unsteady.
"In Kalos, we needed hundreds of slaves working day and night and still barely produced enough. A small town struck by bad weather might yield nothing at all for an entire season." He looked across the field. "But here, a handful of farmers and these Pokémon can tend all of this."
An old official who had spent his career overseeing agriculture in Kalos had tears running down his face without making any effort to stop them. He had seen too many people whipped for not meeting a harvest quota.
Too many fields abandoned because there was no one left to work them. Too many people collapsing from hunger in the streets of Kalos's cities.
Here, hunger seemed like something that had happened somewhere else, a long time ago.
"The Unova Kingdom has no need for forced labor," the agricultural official said, his tone matter-of-fact and warm. "Pokémon understand the land more deeply than we do, and they are better at cultivating crops than any number of reluctant laborers. Treat them well and respect what they know, and they will give everything they have to this land."
He paused.
"Grass-type Pokémon, in particular, significantly shorten growing cycles. Crops that would normally take several months to mature can be ready for harvest in one or two months."
Karen's head snapped up. "One or two months?"
"That is the power of Pokémon partnership. Hunger is simply not something the people of Unova live in fear of."
"This is truly unbelievable !" Karen couldn't help but murmur , and the group of craftsmen of the Kalos delegation wore the same expression.
...
STONES PLZ
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