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The wind died as suddenly as it had risen.
The spiral of clouds unwound itself at a leisurely pace, drifting back to wherever clouds went when they weren't being summoned by small round Pokémon who had no business summoning anything. The pressure lifted. The yard was quiet again.
Steven let out a long, measured breath.
Bad news: Togepi had used Metronome. That part was confirmed.
Good news: Whatever move it had landed on hadn't activated properly. Metronome's outcomes were random — and apparently, even Serene Grace had its limits when the Pokémon in question had no business wielding what it had just tried to call down.
He decided not to think too hard about what that golden light had been reaching for.
"Togepi?"
Togepi sat in the grass looking genuinely put out, its small face scrunched, tiny hands pressed together. It had caused quite a spectacle and had absolutely nothing to show for it.
Bang.
Empoleon, which had been standing in a daze since the chase ended, looked up at the now-ordinary sky — and then its foot slipped on the patch of frost it had made during Ice Spinner earlier. It went down flat.
Garchomp, whose Dragon Rush aura had fully dissipated, walked back across the yard, stepped directly over Empoleon without acknowledging it, and dropped onto the grass with its back to everyone.
Honedge floated near the garden wall, its single eye turned upward. It had an expression that — if a sword ghost could be said to have an expression — suggested it was still imagining something. Something large and dramatic, involving itself at the centre of it. It had just watched the sky do something extraordinary, and it was taking notes.
"Steven! What happened out there?"
Cynthia's voice came from above. She had pushed open the bedroom window, hair damp and loose around her shoulders, and was peering down at the backyard with open curiosity.
Steven looked up at her, then at the upturned grass, the frost patch, the Empoleon still on the ground, and Garchomp determinedly facing the opposite direction.
"Nothing to worry about," he said, his expression perfectly steady. "The Pokémon were just playing around."
The twitch at the corner of his mouth was very small.
Cynthia looked at the backyard for another second. Then she looked at Steven. She appeared unconvinced, but not particularly motivated to investigate further when she was still in a towel.
"All right. Then come up and help me dry my hair when you're done?"
"I'll be up once I've sorted out the food."
The window closed.
Steven turned back to the yard and began setting out the evening meals. He worked through the team systematically — each Pokémon had its own dietary requirements, and after years of training together, he could prepare each portion without much thought.
Across the yard, Aggron and Larvitar were watching him with the kind of focused attention that had nothing to do with training.
"Aggr!"
Little brother. Look — there's more.
"Lar-vi!"
I see it, Big Brother. I see it.
Steven finished distributing and headed for the stairs. He did not look back. He did not need to. The sounds of enthusiastic eating began immediately behind him.
Aggron's meal was primarily composed of metal ore — dense, iron-rich, the kind that took a few minutes to work through properly. Larvitar's portion was rich in rock energy, supplemented with Rock Gems and Ground Gems. Occasionally one of them would sample a piece from the other's bowl for variety. Neither seemed to feel this required discussion.
Empoleon picked itself up, brushed nothing off its chest armour with considerable dignity, and looked over at the two of them eating companionably side by side.
"Awooo." — That used to be me and Garchomp.
Skarmory, working through its own meal of compressed energy cubes, glanced at Empoleon briefly. Then back at its food.
Metagross had settled against the garden wall with an archaeology text open on the ground in front of it. It read with the concentration of a researcher on a deadline, occasionally reaching for a handful of energy cubes and eating them without looking away from the page. Once or twice it added a piece of ore to its mouth as well — the way a person might eat crackers while studying.
It had learned that Steven's next destination involved ruins. There was material to cover. It intended to be prepared.
On the way upstairs, Steven searched his Pokégear for guidance on how to properly dry someone else's hair with a hairdryer.
He was thorough about it. He read the article twice. By the time he pushed the bedroom door open, he had a reasonably clear methodology.
Cynthia was sitting on the edge of the bed in dark, soft pyjamas, working through her damp hair with a towel. She nodded toward the table.
"The hairdryer's there."
Steven picked it up, turned it on briefly to check the setting, and adjusted the heat before directing it at his hand to confirm the temperature. Then he moved behind her, gathered a section of hair with one hand, and started at the roots — moving slowly downward toward the ends, keeping the dryer at a consistent distance.
The whirring of the hairdryer filled the room. Neither of them spoke.
Cynthia turned a small doll over in her hands — blue-haired, simply made — posing it at different angles without any particular intent.
Steven worked methodically, section by section. He took his time. There was no rushing it.
When he finished, he let out a quiet breath and looked at the result.
Satisfactory.
Cynthia stood, checked herself in the mirror, ran her fingers through once, and nodded. "You're quite good at that." She sat back down. "I'm assigning this to you from now on."
"Noted." The pleased expression on his face lasted about two seconds before he got it under control.
"All right, it's late." Cynthia stood and steered him toward the door with a hand on his back. "Out you go, Mr. Stone."
Steven let himself be pushed. At the doorway, he turned back once — caught a brief glimpse of Cynthia's face in the narrowing gap — smiled, and the door shut.
"Don't forget — Solaceon Town tomorrow," he said from the other side.
He headed downstairs.
In the backyard, Steven recalled each of his Pokémon to their Poké Balls once they had finished eating. He took a moment to check in with Cynthia's team — a few words, a look at each one — before leaving them to rest for the night.
Then he stepped up onto Metagross's back.
"Let's go."
"Metagross."
Metagross lifted off smoothly and accelerated low and fast over the landscape — the kind of flight that was just above the ground, skimming rather than soaring, the world blurring past on either side. Steven had once described riding Metagross to someone as similar to a hoverboard — a very large, highly intelligent hoverboard with its own opinions.
They passed over the edge of a pond.
The wash from Metagross's passage sent a small wave rolling across the surface.
"CHA! (▼皿▼#)"
A Crawdaunt surfaced in an eruption of bubbles, large claws raised, ready to make its displeasure known to whoever had disturbed its pond at this hour —
It saw Steven. It saw Metagross.
Its claws lowered. Its expression underwent several changes in quick succession.
It sank back below the surface without a word.
Not again. Why is he always near this pond.
Crawdaunt remained underwater, considering itself fortunate that this particular visit had not involved any direct interaction.
Steven found an open area a reasonable distance from town, set down from Metagross, and released his team.
Larvitar immediately picked up a piece of gravel from the ground, examined it, and put it in its mouth.
"Larvi" — Passable. Barely.
Aggron tried a piece experimentally.
"Aggr" — Adequate.
Steven settled cross-legged on the ground behind Lucario and closed his eyes. Lucario turned to face him. This was a familiar posture — Steven would project his thoughts through structured intent, and Lucario would interpret them through the thread of Aura that had grown between them over years of shared training.
The rest of the team spread out.
Metagross called Skarmory and Empoleon toward it with a glance — three-on-one was the only arrangement that gave them any meaningful challenge against it — and began.
Honedge found a large boulder at the edge of the training area, drew its blade, and set to work in solitude. Each strike left a clean line in the rock. It moved with a quiet, focused intensity, as though trying to answer a question it hadn't quite put into words yet.
At the centre of the field, Lucario and Scizor had taken their starting positions.
Lucario held its bone staff loosely. Scizor's large claws were raised.
They both broke into Quick Attack simultaneously — two blurs crossing the field at nearly identical speeds, meeting in the centre and pulling apart and circling again in rapid succession.
"You're defaulting to Quick Attack too often," Steven said, his eyes still closed. He was monitoring Lucario's intent through Aura — feeling the shape of its instincts as much as watching the battle. "Use Extreme Speed to close distance, then Force Palm."
Lucario's Aura flared.
Its speed jumped to a different category entirely.
Scizor's claws cut through the air where Lucario had been standing. It stopped, registered the miss, and spun — just in time to see Lucario already inside its reach.
The Force Palm hit centre mass.
Scizor skidded back across the dirt, digging in, and barely caught itself through Endure — the stubborn instinct to refuse a knockout pulling it upright through sheer will.
Lucario glanced back at Steven.
"Did you feel the difference?" Steven asked.
Scizor looked up from its crouch. Something in its expression shifted. A different quality of intent built up — and then its Aura erupted, fierce and concentrated, cracking the ground beneath its feet. It launched.
"Now — Bullet Punch forward!" Steven projected.
Lucario couldn't track Scizor at that velocity through sight alone — but Aura didn't rely on sight. It registered the shape of Scizor's movement as a pressure in the air rather than a visual. Lucario planted its feet, wound back, and drove its fist forward.
Bang.
Bullet Punch met Scizor's oncoming strike head-on. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground — a spiderweb of cracks spreading outward beneath both Pokémon, the earth compressing and fracturing under the combined force.
"Metagross."
Metagross disengaged from its own three-on-one in the same instant, moving with the calm efficiency of something that had run this scenario many times before. Both arms swept out simultaneously — one catching Lucario, one catching Scizor — and redirected their momentum, sending them sliding apart across the grass rather than into each other.
A large chunk of fractured rock landed in the grass less than an arm's length from Steven.
He looked at it.
He looked at Metagross.
"...Good timing," he said.
Metagross said nothing. It returned to its side of the field.
Steven exhaled slowly and reached back to check that the rock hadn't clipped anything it shouldn't have.
It hadn't. Barely.
He picked up the bone staff Lucario had dropped, set it upright, and nodded to signal the next round.