1. Ash's Story (Part 7: Kalos)

Chapter 72: Squishy's Order

After the night we spent resting at Hotel Marine Snow, Geosenge Town felt too quiet for a place that had almost been swallowed by the Ultimate Weapon. The streets were open again, but people still spoke in hushed voices, and the repaired stone paths looked strange beside patches of flowers that had bloomed where Xerneas's light had touched the ground. Even the morning air seemed to remember the weapon's glow.

We were preparing to return toward Anistar City so we could finally continue past the road that had been blocked by Team Flare's crisis. Serena checked the straps on her bag, Clemont inspected his machines more carefully than usual, and Bonnie stayed close to Dedenne while staring back at the old stones of Geosenge. Elline and David were quiet too, and I knew none of us had forgotten what Olympia had warned us about.

The first disaster had ended, but the second one had not shown its face yet.

Pikachu sat on my shoulder and pressed his cheek lightly against mine. His tense posture reached me clearly. "The air still feels wrong here."

"I know," I whispered. "We keep moving, but we do not stop watching."

Before we could leave, a tall shadow crossed the hotel entrance. AZ stood before us, his ancient frame wrapped in silence, his eyes fixed on somewhere none of us could see. He looked at the flowers near the road, then at the place where the weapon had risen, and his voice came slowly, like each word had spent centuries inside him.

"A long time ago, a very long time ago, a man made an ultimate weapon," AZ said. "Using it required the life force of many Pokémon. The Pokémon granted eternal life learned this, and the resurrected eternal Pokémon left the man's side. The man was surprised and sad. He had revived it so they could be together. Day after day passed, but they were never to meet. Eventually, he became a mere shell of a man, condemned to wander forever by the light of the weapon. And a Pokémon that also wanders eternally. Where is it now? What do I have to do to meet it?"

No one answered him right away. I could hear Serena's breath catch beside me, and I thought about Xerneas sleeping inside the bond it had chosen with us. The weapon had not only tried to steal life. It had carried old grief, old obsession, and the kind of love that became destruction when it forgot how to let go.

AZ lowered his head. "The weapon is broken again, yet its sorrow remains."

Then he turned and walked away before I could ask anything. His steps faded down the street, and the morning seemed even heavier after he left.

Serena touched my arm. "Ash, do you think he was warning us?"

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe he was trying to remind himself why the weapon should never exist again."

David adjusted his glasses while watching AZ disappear. "That story sounds too close to what Lysandre tried to repeat."

"That is why we cannot relax," Elline said.

Bonnie looked from one adult face to another, then hugged Dedenne tighter. "Then we will make sure nobody uses something like that again."

I smiled at her, but the worry inside me did not fade. We started back toward Anistar City, and once the roads opened ahead of us, Route 18 finally waited beyond the next stretch. Snowbelle City still lay far away, but for the first time since Geosenge collapsed, moving forward felt possible.

We had not been walking long before Bonnie suddenly stopped and opened her bag with a confused sound.

"Wait, what is this?" Bonnie asked.

Dedenne leaned over the edge of her bag, whiskers twitching. Pikachu's ears shot up at the same time. A small green body shifted inside the pouch, soft and cell-like, with one larger eye and a red core glowing faintly on its body. For a second, none of us moved.