"Stop fidgeting, you're going to wear a hole through your jacket."
Lisandra leaned against the stone archway outside the Viridian City Gym, an amused smirk playing on her lips.
Seth paused, his hands freezing on the collar of his custom-tailored white coat.
He cleared his throat and adjusted his cuffs, trying to look entirely unbothered.
"I am not fidgeting. I am ensuring my presentation is flawless," Seth replied
defensively. "We are about to et Giovanni. The man is a living legend. It
doesn't hurt to look presentable."
Lisandra chuckled, pushing her glasses up her nose. "You're nervous. The great, unflappable Seth Williams is actually sweating."
"I am anticipating," Seth corrected, though a faint blush betrayed him.
The heavy, polished oak doors of the gym opened, and a stern-looking attendant gestured for them to enter.
They were led down a sleek, dimly lit corridor that opened into a massive,
luxurious underground office. Sitting behind a pristine mahogany desk was a
young man in a perfectly pressed black suit.
A sleek, elegant Persian lay curled
comfortably at his feet.
Giovanni.
At twenty-one years old, he was only two years their senior, but the sheer,
suffocating gravity of his presence made him feel like a seasoned monarch. He didn't have the eccentric, theatrical flair Seth relied on. Giovanni simply radiated absolute, unquestionable authority.
"Seth Williams. Lisandra," Giovanni said, his voice smooth, charismatic, and incredibly commanding. He gestured to the plush leather seats opposite his desk.
"Please, sit."
Seth and Lisandra took their seats. Despite her usual skepticism of authority figures, even Lisandra felt a quiet sense of awe. The man in front of them was the absolute pinnacle of their generation.
"Professor Oak speaks very highly of you both," Giovanni began, pouring two
glasses of water and sliding them across the desk.
"A prodigy of battle, and a prodigy of history. An interesting combination."
He leaned back, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. His dark eyes locked
onto Lisandra's.
"As archaeologists, you spend your lives digging through the buried truths of this world. You see the foundations that nations are built upon," Giovanni said, his tone turning philosophical.
"Tell . What is your opinion of our glorious Pokémon League?"
Seth blinked, surprised by the sudden, heavy question.
Lisandra, however, didn't flinch. She t Giovanni's intense gaze evenly.
"I think it's a deeply flawed, elitist institution built on a mountain of
secrets," Lisandra answered bluntly. Seth nearly choked on his water, but
Lisandra continued.
"It prioritizes the preservation of power for a select few over the actual betternt of the world. However... I don't mind using their vast resources to fund my research. And despite its rotting foundation, there are genuinely good people within the League trying to make a difference."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
Then, Giovanni let out a low, rich chuckle.
"A thoroughly pragmatic view," Giovanni smiled, his eyes gleaming with a strange, dark approval. "You see the tool for what it is, and you use it. I
appreciate that kind of clarity."
He stood up, buttoning his suit jacket.
"The Professor has briefed you on our
objective. We are investigating a newly uncovered ruin deep within the Viridian
sector. Strangely enough, despite my rapid ascent through the League, I have yet to encounter these 'ghosts' from the Ancient Kingdom. A quirk of fate, I
suppose."
Giovanni's lips curled into a cold, highly anticipated smile.
"I am quite curious to see if they live up to the rumors."
The Viridian Ruins were buried deep beneath the earth, a sprawling labyrinth of crumbling stone and overgrown roots.
"Seth, do not touch that," Lisandra snapped, swatting his hand away from a glowing blue crystal embedded in the wall.
"It's just a rock, Lisa. I was observing its aesthetic properties," Seth argued,
rubbing the back of his hand.
"It is a volatile, archaic energy conduit. If you channel your aura into it, you
will collapse the entire ceiling on top of us, you absolute idiot," she scolded,
pulling out a specialized scanner to docunt the runes around the crystal.
Walking a few paces ahead, Giovanni listened to their bickering with a faint,
amused smirk.
The underground cavern opened up into a massive, dod chamber. At
the center of the room stood an elevated stone pedestal.
But they weren't alone.
Standing in a semi-circle around the pedestal were a dozen figures clad in
archaic armor.
At the forefront stood a woman in blinding, gold-plated armor. She held a heavy, ceremonial lance, and her face was concealed behind a sleek, yellow-tinted visor.
The Yellow Knight.
"Dogs of the League," the Yellow Knight's voice echoed through the cavern, sharp and arrogant. "You have trespassed on sacred ground. Turn back now, or your corpses will feed the earth."
Giovanni didn't look intimidated. He didn't even look mildly concerned. He
stepped forward, casually brushing a speck of dust from his sleeve.
"An envoy of the Ancient Kingdom," Giovanni murmured, his eyes scanning her stance. "I have been looking forward to this."
"Insolent boy! Annihilate them!" the Yellow Knight roared.
She hurled a Poké Ball. A massive, towering Electivire materialised, its body crackling with terrifying Pseudo-Champion-level electric energy. The sheer density of its aura made the air in the cavern taste like copper.
At the sa ti, her grunts released a swarm of Pokémon - Golbats, Arbok, and Weezing - that surged toward Seth and Lisandra.
Giovanni simply unclasped a Poké Ball and let it drop to the floor.
BOOM!
A colossal Nidoking appeared. The earth beneath its feet actively shifted and warped, completely submitting to the beast's overwhelming Ground-type energy.
The Yellow Knight sneered. "Electivire! Ice Punch!"
The Electivire blitzed forward, its fist radiating a freezing, super-effective
aura.
Giovanni didn't shout a command. He rely gave a microscopic tilt of his head.
His Nidoking didn't try to dodge.
Instead, it stomped its foot. The ground
beneath the charging Electivire violently erupted, launching a perfectly tid Earth Power that struck the electric-type directly in the chest, completely breaking its montum and sending it crashing into the ceiling.
"What?!" the Yellow Knight gasped.
"Your Pokémon possesses raw power," Giovanni analyzed coldly, his hands resting in his pockets. "But its footwork is atrocious. It relies entirely on forward
montum, making its trajectory painfully obvious."
Giovanni raised a single finger. "Earthquake. Confine the blast radius."
Nidoking roared, slamming its tail into the ground. Instead of a widespread
tremor, the seismic energy was hyper-focused into a concentrated shockwave that tore through the floor in a straight line, obliterating the recovering Electivire and slamming it into the back wall.
The Yellow Knight looked at Giovanni with a shocked expression as he showed a slightly disappointed expression.
While Giovanni orchestrated a masterclass in battle, Seth and Lisandra were handling the swarm of grunts.
"Gardevoir, Teleport!" Lisandra commanded.
"Salance, Dragon Rush!" Seth shouted in perfect unison.
Seth's starter had finally evolved, and the newly minted Salance was a
terrifying force. Gardevoir's eyes glowed blue, wrapping Salance in a psychic bubble. In a flash of light, the massive dragon vanished, reappearing directly above the cluster of Ancient Kingdom grunts.
Using the montum from the teleportation, Salance ignited into a fiery, draconian teor, slamming into the center of the enemy formation.
The synergistic combo devastated the invading forces, taking out four Advanced-level Pokémon in a single, perfectly coordinated strike.
Seth and Lisandra didn't even need to look at each other to know what the other was doing. Their rhythm was flawless.
"Damn you!" the Yellow Knight scread, recalling her heavily wounded Electivire. She glared at Giovanni with a mix of pure hatred and sheer terror.
The reports were wrong. This 21-year-old wasn't just a prodigy -- he was a
monster.
"Fall back!" she roared to her surviving n.
She pulled a glowing, fractured stone from her belt and crushed it. A spatial
tear ripped open behind them, sucking the Yellow Knight and her grunts into the void before vanishing completely.
Giovanni watched the space where they had been, his expression utterly
unbothered.
"Fascinating tactics," Giovanni mused, adjusting his cuffs. "But ultimately
lacking vision. They rely too heavily on their archaic tools."
With the enemies gone, Lisandra imdiately rushed up the stone steps to the central pedestal. She brushed away centuries of accumulated dust, revealing a small, intricately carved tallic fragnt.
She pulled a magnifying glass from her pocket, her eyes darting across the
jagged edges and the faint, glowing runes etched into the tal.
"What is it, Lisa?" Seth asked, walking up beside her.
"It's a fragnt," Lisandra whispered, her archaeological instincts completely
taking over.
"Based on the fracture patterns and the incomplete runic sequence, this is only a third of a complete artifact. Whatever this key unlocks... the Ancient Kingdom wants it badly."
She carefully placed the tallic fragnt into a secure containnt box and slipped it into her backpack.
"We need to study this," she said, looking back at Seth and Giovanni.
Giovanni nodded approvingly.
"An excellent find, Lisandra. It seems our expedition was a complete success."
As they made their way out of the crumbling ruins, Seth walked close to
Lisandra, a proud, contented smile on his face. He had fought by her side,
matching her pace perfectly. They were no longer just a playboy and a
researcher.
They were partners.
And as the sunlight hit their faces upon exiting the cavern, neither of them
could have possibly known that the broken tallic piece sitting in Lisandra's bag would one day spark a tragedy that would shatter their world forever.
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