Humans and Pokémon are colonising Mars, but good people aren't the only ones with their eyes on this new world.
The first spaceflight of the Ares program launched 49 years ago. So far, the red planet hasn't been kind. Without spacesuits, few Pokémon...
On a chilly February morning, Nyx picked up a rental campervan. Their group of 10 threw in their bags: Nyx, Firmino, Mercury, Sonnet, Callerya, Praise, Thalassa, Jin, Eden and Plectrude. Sonnet struggled to find a secure spot for the bulky backpack containing his portable darkroom. It would have to stay on his knee.
They shared one more breakfast with a crowd of loved ones at the ranch before they left. Castra had her Interplanetary Police badge by then. In a few days, she and Aranchi would leave for the Moon.
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'Safe travels, y'all!'
'Have fun!'
'Come back soon!'
Once their voices faded and they disappeared from the windows and rearview mirror, Nyx switched their 'adventure' playlist on. The hairpin turns of northern Orre's mountain roads didn't stop her putting her foot down. They sped through Orre and onto the interregional highway to Midnight City in the Daytenne region, where Firmino was born. While their friends went surfing, he and Plectrude showed Nyx the family home that had long been taken over by wild Pokémon. The windows were smashed and boarded up. They crawled in through a hole chewed by Rattata. Firmino and Plectrude expected to wish they could stay there to restore the house to its former glory, but it only hammered it home that their mother was dead and no restoration work could bring her back. They left to explore the city instead.
Sonnet found that he didn't like surfing. In fact, whilst he liked to look at the sea, he didn't want to get in it at all. He and Mercury found Nyx, Firmino and Plectrude on one of the city's famous piers, where there was the best view of the sun setting over the glittering skyline.
Praise already had a suitcase bursting with Orre Prospectors and Clearwater Clobbopus merchandise in Callerya's room in Obsidian City. He still had a bag of the local college team's merch and another filled with souvenirs, including a giant Mantine plush with the city's name embroidered on its back. Wish told Callerya that Praise was like his other dad. Their house in Seri was full of 'useless, sentimental junk.'
The only restaurant that Firmino remembered closed years ago. They bought a bag of gas station donuts and chips and drove northeast, into a forbidding desert of cracked plains and windswept peaks reminiscent of Mars. There was no privacy or personal space in the campervan. They were packed in like tinned Magikarp, with Pokémon on top of them and spilling out of the van, but at least they stayed warm that way. As the sun rose over the peaks that loomed over the lone road through the desert, they ate their remaining snacks and drove on to Neon City, the Elemar region's infamous haunt of casinos, seedy bars and kaleidoscopic neon lights.
They couldn't stop in Neon City without playing the slots. Eden won P100,000 and Praise won P5,000, but Jin only lost money. He was still grumbling when they ate dinner at a restaurant that Castra said Hadron recommended.
