Lazarus enters the lobby and sees hundreds of novice trainers just like him talking and mingling. Some among themselves, some with their pokémon.
In his arms is a very proud looking Aurora, and an even prouder looking Kamish is following behind.
"No way dude! Is that a Dreepy!?"
Lazarus turns to see a group of trainers seated at a table nearby looking at his dragon pokémon in surprise.
"Yeah. He's called Kamish." Lazarus says, and Kamish looks at the table, trying to figure out if he can beat all their pokémon or not.
There are four people sitting at the table, with their pokemon around them.
There is a Ghastly floating above the guy who just called out. Next to it is a cute brown rabbit pokémon, and a really small yellow mouse pokémon,
Kamish concludes he would win, even though he has never seen pokémon of their species before, and doesn't even know what their type is, except the Ghastly.
"And an Alolan Vulpix. Pretty." A guy with the Ghastly floating around him says.
"We haven't seen you around before. Are you new here?" A pink haired girl with Pichu on her shoulder asks.
"Yes, Just arrived here a day ago." Lazarus nods.
The girl replies, "Come have a seat. We were just talking about dragons, and low and behold we see one right after. We would love to know more about you and your pokémon. Right guys?"
"Yeah, of course. I for one would love to know how you got a Dragon pokémon." The guy with the Pachirisu says and everyone else nods just in agreement.
"Yeah, sure." Lazarus shrugs, and puts Aurora on the table and takes a seat, "I am Lazarus, and the Vulpix is Aurora."
"I am Marcus." The guy with the Ghastly says. "The Ghastly is called Smits."
Everyone at the table take turns introducing themselves and their pokémon, the girl with the Pichu is called Rose, named after her pink hair she says.
The guy with the Ghastly is Greg, and the blacked haired girl with the Buneary is named Sarah.
"So a dragon huh. A Dreepy at that. How did that happen?" Greg asks Lazarus.
"Oh before that. We were just debating who the strongest dragon in the world is. Marcus thinks it's Vector, Rose thinks it's El Drago, Greg and I know it's Excelsior. What about you?" Sarah asks.
"It's Excelsior," Lazarus says without any hesitation. "I would even go as far as to say that he is the strongest Calamity pokémon in existence right now."
"Come on man. You don't have to say Excelsior just because Cynthia is our Warden." Marcus retorts, "Vector is the fastest non legendary pokémon on earth. I don't think even Excelsior can beat him. No hate to the Warden of course."
Lazarus shrugs, "Yeah sure, Vector is faster than Excelsior but not by much. And the combat power of a Dragapult can't compare to that of a Garchomp."
"And to use that combat power Excelsior would have to catch Vector first, which I don't think he can." Marcus shoots back. "And I obviously don't need to mention that ghost pokémon can become intangible, you would know that since you literally have the coolest ghost pokémon ever."
Greg just shakes his head, "See! This is what we have been dealing with since the last half an hour. He has been obsessed with Vector since he watched Leon and Raihan's Galar Cup exhibition match last year."
"You have been to Galar?" Lazarus asks Marcus. "Their exhibition match takes place in an isolated island. How did you even see Vector fight?"
"My brother is a big fan of pokémon battles, he got us tickets to the Cup last year." Marcus says and then shrugs, "And yeah, I obviously didn't see Vector fight on the island. I saw the battle on hologram like everyone else, but I did manage to catch a glimpse of Vector when it was flying past the stadium and let me tell you it was so fast I didn't even know what happened.
We just heard something breaking the sound barrier and then nothing. Luckily someone was taking a video right when it happened, and even in slow motion all we saw was blur, so I have a hard time believing any other pokémon can match that level of power."
Greg shakes his head, "Speed isn't everything, yeah sure Vector is fast but what is it going to do about a point blank Hyper Beam?"
"Become intangible, duh." Marcus looks at Greg like he is an idiot.
Greg shakes his head, "And how long do you think Vector can keep that up. Even ghost pokémon have limits. All I am saying is that Cynthia is the strongest pokémon trainer in the world. No one disagrees with that, right? So her most powerful pokémon must also be the strongest pokémon in the world."
Lazarus chuckles at the logic, even Kamish think's it's stupid.
"Well, you wouldn't think that if you had seen Vector like I did." Marcus says.
"I have actually." Lazarus smiles.
"What do you mean?" Greg asks.
"I have seen Excelsior before. Not only that I have even ridden him."
"You are joking right?" Marcus looks incredulously at Lazarus and then at every one else at the table. "There is no way you have ridden one of the most ferocious pokémon in the world."
"It happened when I was young. My mother was a really good friend of Cynthia." Lazarus says.
Every one at the table just looks at him, not sure if he is lying or not.
"Show us a photo." Greg says, "You must have some proof."
"Sure," Lazarus fiddles with his wrist terminal and a second later, a hologram appears out of it.
They all lay their eyes on a lifelike picture of two women and a kid.
"Your mother is Sylvia Hawke?" Marcus says in disbelief, "No fucking way. Her being friends with Cynthia is the understatement of the century."
The hologram changes and shows more picture of Lazarus with his mother and Cynthia.
One of them even has a gigantic Garchomp in the background.
No one at the table except the pokémon playing among themselves can believe what just happened.
Until five minutes ago, they were talking among themselves about which dragon pokémon is the most powerful.
And then a guy shows up with one of the most rare dragon type pokémon in existence and tells them that he has ridden one of the pokémon there were talking about, which was already a lot but then they find out that his mother is none other than the hero of Sinnoh.
They look at each other trying to figure out if this is real.
Marcus is the first to speak, "So, let me get this straight. Your mother is Sylvia Hawke which means your father is the richest man in the country, which pretty much means you are the fucking prince of Jubilife. And out of all the things you could be, you want to be a pokémon trainer! Am I the only one here things don't make sense to."
"Yeah… I get that a lot." Lazarus sighs, "Let's just say my mother inspired me more than my father did."
"I still can't wrap the head around the fact that I am sitting next to the son of my childhood hero." Sarah speaks.
"You and me both." Rose says.
"Dude! Do you have an autograph of your mother I could get." Greg jokes.
"I am curious. How does it feel?" Rose asks.
"How does what feel?" Lazarus asks back.
"Being surrounded with all these amazing people. You have obviously met people the rest of us can only dream of meeting. I mean you parents, the Warden. How does it feel being so close to greatness?" Rose curiously asks.
Lazarus thinks about it for a second or two before replying to her, "Honestly, this is something I have only recently started to realize. Growing up this was just the norm for me. My mother was part of the Elite 4, my father ran one of the biggest company in the world. But now I guess it makes me want to do something with all this privilege I was born with."
"Really can't imagine what it's like being you." Greg sighs.
"Please tell us more about your mother. What was she like?" Sarah asks.
And just like that the previous topic is forgotten as they start asking Lazarus questions about his mother, and Lazarus is more than happy to talk about her.
They talk for a few hours, before Lazarus exchanges contact information with them and decides to head to a training room.
"Hey, if you are up for some pokemon battles, hit us up." Marcus says.
Lazarus nods, "Yeah, I'd like that."
Then he picks up his pokemon and heads back to do more training.