The Pantheon

Pewter City

The Pewter City Museum of Natural Science and Pokémon History sounded, at first glance, like the kind of place Ashley would normally pass by with a polite nod and a muttered “maybe next time” as she beelined to the Pokémon Center.

But today?

Today she walked through those heavy stone doors like she meant it.

Outside, the wind kicked up little clouds of dust across the gray cobbled streets of Pewter, but inside the museum it was quiet—cool, dim, and blissfully free of screaming Zubat and overprotective Pokémon.

Ashley exhaled the kind of breath she usually saved for surviving rockslides. “Sweet silence,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “No one setting anything on fire, no one trying to ‘accidentally’ train by headbutting boulders.”

Her brain immediately supplied Mars’ smug grin.

She swatted the air like she could smack the memory away.

“Nope. Not thinking about any of you. This is my time.”

The museum was mostly empty—just a few older couples and a slow-moving school group trailing behind a bored docent with a clip-on mic and the enthusiasm of a Snorlax in a math class. Ashley wandered past the fossil wing, eyeing a massive Kabutops skeleton with vague appreciation but no real spark. She lingered by a chunk of meteorite labeled “confirmed fragment of a Cleffa migration stone,” but again—cool, but not her thing.

Then she turned a corner and saw the Evolutionary Stones exhibit.

And her face lit up.

“Oooh. Okay. Now we’re talking.”

The display cases were sleek and glassy, gently lit from below, and each stone was perched on a floating disc, like they were sacred artifacts. She stepped right up to the first row. Fire Stone. Water Stone. Leaf Stone. Thunder Stone. Ice Stone. The classics. These were the stones you bought in bulk from Celadon’s department store. Their colors flickered softly under display lights: red-orange like embers, pale aqua like tide pools, sharp yellow like static caught in crystal.

For a good fifteen minutes, Ashley just stood there. Watching the light bounce off the stones. Reading every tiny placard. Soaking it all in without anyone bugging her.

No Mars grunting over how she needed to sit down and drink water like he was her trainer.

No Venus shadowing her like a ten-pound Vaporeon-shaped security system, giving side-eye to every stranger that got too close.

No Chione trying to blend in with the exhibit by curling under the glass cases like she was the star attraction—again.

No Mercury sneaking off into the gift shop, pretending he totally wasn’t about to lift three Rare Candies and a keychain shaped like a Poké Flute.

Just her.
Just this.
Just quiet.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, muscles relaxing one at a time. Her boots scuffed softly against the museum’s tile as she shuffled toward an empty bench tucked in the corner of the Evolutionary Stone exhibit. She dropped into it with the grace of someone who hadn’t had a moment alone in days, arms draping lazily across the backrest, her head tipping back to stare at the ceiling like it had all the answers.

“I love them,” she mumbled toward the overhead lights. “I really do.”

She shut her eyes for a beat. Let the quiet sit.

“But if I had to spend one more hour with their chaos gremlin energy,” she added, voice flat, “I would’ve locked myself in a Poké Ball and yeeted it into a volcano.”