The New Normal - 15-2 - Interlude - Steven

The New Normal – 15-2 – Interlude – Steven

The Hoenn Conference had begun, and as planned, he and Bruno both entered into it. It was inevitable that they would battle against each other; he had planned it that way. After all, what better way was there to prove that he deserved to be Champion than to beat and overcome his one and only rival?

Besides, he truly wasn’t being arrogant when he felt that none of the ‘normal’ trainers that he or Bruno would fight against would ever be their match.

Not to look down on their training or anything, but the two of them had really overprepared themselves in preparation for the Hoenn Conference – as they needed to be. His run through the Hoenn Conference needed to be a statement – a demonstration that he was so far above the strength of regular trainers that he was a worthy contender to be Champion of the region.

He just hoped that they weren’t paired off against each other too early. If possible, he would prefer if they battled each other in the finals.

It was only fitting.

According to his assistants, his name was already making rounds in the battling community for his string of victories that he accomplished in the Hoenn Conference as he achieved flawless victory after flawless victory in the earlier rounds of the Conference.

The unfortunate opponents that he was matched up against all crumbled before the sharpened and refined might of his Steel types.

Yet despite his recent successes, he knew that he couldn’t become arrogant. The Hoenn Conference was merely the beginning of his task – even if he didn’t include his battle against Bruno, he still had to beat the Elite Four, and then Champion Wallace himself. Those were the battles that he was most concerned about.

They were not going to be easy battles. But he held onto his confidence that he would overcome them all anyways.

After all, they were not Steven Stone.

However, at the current moment, he wasn’t thinking about the tough battles ahead of him as he was called back into his father’s office to discuss the recent findings regarding the odd stone that his father had taken an interest in. In all honesty, so had he. His gut was telling him that whatever this stone proved to be was going to be very important, and he knew he wanted to be a part of the discovery.

Which was where he found himself now, sitting across his father as he waited for the explanation.

“You remember that I said that this wasn’t an ordinary evolution stone right?” His father asked.

“I do.” He nodded, “But what kind of clue did you find? I even searched around Verdanturf for you like I promised, and I didn’t find anything.” Not that there was too much to look out for. Verdanturf just didn’t have all that many places of interest.

“Yes, I read that report.” His father said, “That’s why I decided to put aside the origins of this mysterious stone for now and focus on its effects. To that end, since I figured that it was some kind of evolution stone, I decided to brute force my way through testing and identify whether it reacted to a Pokémon by running tests on every single Pokémon to see if there was any reaction.”

“And in that respect, I got pretty lucky.” His father continued, “I was working my way down the Pokedex entries, just for the sake of completeness, and I stumbled across a reaction when I tested it against a Pidgeot.”

“…A Pidgeot?” He questioned, “Why that Pokémon?”

His father shrugged, “I haven’t a clue. All I know was this lucky break saved us a lot of money.”

No kidding. It really was fortunate for them that Pidgeot was pretty early in the Pokédex. If it was one of the later entries, and if his father had to run through and do tests on all the Pokémon in the Pokédex until then, it would have been exorbitantly expensive.

“Okay… so what’s the reaction? What did the stone actually do in your tests?” He asked.

“That’s the thing that I’m puzzled by – and why I wanted to talk to you about it – there was a identifiable reaction from the stone itself, but the readings were nowhere near what you’d expect from a normal evolution stone.” His father explained.

That was very strange, “Maybe the stone is incomplete? Or perhaps it needs another element before it can fully activate?”

His father nodded, “That’s what I suspected as well. The issue is that I haven’t any idea about where to begin to identify that missing element. I’ve already tried testing if there was any reaction between this mysterious stone and other evolutionary stones, but to no avail. I tried other evolutionary items and those failed too. Whatever it is that’s missing, its likely something completely different to our usual evolutionary items.”

He frowned, “Well that’s frustrating. We’ve completely half of the puzzle, but the other half still eludes us. Perhaps it’s something that relies on more… subjective factors, like a Pokémon’s strength or a trainer’s bond with a Pokémon? Like the conditions that lead a Pokémon to evolve?”

“…Possibly. Maybe you’re onto something here.” His father said, before unexpectedly passing the stone to him, “But that’s why I wanted you to take and hold on to this stone from now on. I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish anything else by keeping it in the lab – it’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You’re far more active than me – I know you like exploring new places and sticking your head into those caves and ruins that you so often do – so I think you’ll have a better chance of figuring out what this is than I would. You were always the better trainer, and I suspect that being a trainer is going to be important if we want to find out the mystery of this stone.”

He nodded slowly; he could see that. So he carefully took the stone off of his father’s hands.

“Before you leave, I’ll give you a medallion that you can use to keep it stored safely in.” His father added.

“Thank you.” He said, before a question formed in his mind, “Do you think there will be other stones like this?”

“Most likely.” His father confirmed, “If we found one that somehow links to a Pidgeot, then surely there will be other stones that are linked to other Pokémon as well. You’ll be doing us a favour if you find them all.”

“And what are you planning to do if we do find more?” He asked, “Monopolise it under Devon Corp? Or would that be a bit too greedy?”

“I’ll discuss this with you when such a scenario becomes relevant. If that is feasible, then yes. I see no reason why we should allow such a golden opportunity to slip away like that.” His father answered, “But only if monopolisation is actually a realistic goal – I’m not foolish enough to try to hoard something that should not be hoarded.”

“For the time being, just ensure that knowledge about our investigation isn’t spread around.” His father continued, “Even if we aren’t able to monopolise it in the end, I want Devon Corp to at least be a dominant position to profit.”

“Of course.” He agreed, agreeing with his father’s logic. Business was business.

Before he left, he inspected the small and mysterious stone with a careful look. Now that they knew that it was somehow connected to a Pidgeot, the colouration of the stone was starting to make more sense as it matched pretty well with the colouration of a Pidgeot. That could be a hint towards the appearance of other stones.

“You should probably give it a name as well.” His father said, “We can’t keep calling it a ‘mysterious stone’ forever.”

“Already got one in mind.” He replied, “I think we’ll call it a Pidgeotite. It seems fitting.”

He hoped that his father was right and that the Pidgeotite would only be a start. He smirked inwardly at the thought that there might be such a thing as a Metagrossite. How incredible would that be if his Metagross had access to yet another evolution on top of it?

How strong would it become?

A.N. While they are making progress, unfortunately for Steven and Joseph, unlocking the secrets of the Mega Evolution isn’t so simple. If the Mega Stone was all that it required, then sure it would be simple. But the Key Stone is an equally important component, and that’s not going to be so easy to figure out even with meta-knowledge. But there will be progress made in the future. Hope you enjoyed!