He's in trouble. Yeah, no shit sherlock, he definitely is. 

He's stuck in the main room now, with a harried man working through three computers at once, sweating through his shirt and bleeding in one bandaged leg.

It's less injury than Luce had thought he'd have, so that's a mild relief.

Sitting on a chair with a Zubat on his shoulder, Luce swallows nervously.

"Look here, you've got a visitor," she sings to the man-- probably the girl's father, the power plant owner. He looks over, his face filling with dread. 

She sets down Chimchar and Psyduck's Poke Balls on the desk.

Luce keeps his face composed, because the man's evidently stressed out, on the verge of a panic attack, and Luce can't give him another reason to be shoved over the edge.

Luce, strangely enough-- isn't as scared as he thought he'd be.

He's not calm, but he isn't flustered either. He's looking around, noting that Mars has a Purugly beside her, plenty of Zubat, and some Stunky. He meets eyes with Chimchar and Psyduck, and subtly shakes his head.

There's a Zubat with its wing on the man's neck. Luce quickly finds himself in a similar situation, and he averts his eye quickly.

"Oh, don't be scared."

Luce shoots back when Mars is suddenly an inch away from him, but she smiles at his reaction and backs off, standing straight and dainty like the elegant girl she is(n't).

"Zubat, don't bother," she says, and Zubat thankfully, thankfully, removes its wing.

It stays on his shoulder, though, but that's much better. Mars leans over the back of the chair, inching disturbingly close to the plant owner as he keeps a careful eye on Luce.

"Now, boy, you know what will happen if you make any wrong moves." The Zubat beside the plant owner's neck inches just a little closer-- and Luce fights to tell her to stop.

His voice doesn't come. Why does he keep forgetting that? 

So he nods, and raises his able hand, signifying a surrender.

Mars smiles at that. "Good boy," she says, and turns back toward the plant owner. "Now, you. No slowing down now. Get all that power in, hurry."

Luce breathes in.

And breathes out.

He comes in only to get caught. That's pathetic. Maybe he should've thought this through like someone with a proper head screwed on. He just hopes Barry doesn't hear of this, because his head would fly and Barry would never stop sticking to him. 

Luce thinks for about ten seconds before he decides he's got no plan. He's too old for this-- wait, nevermind, he's actually pretty damn young. He's too young for this, then. 

Maybe the girl and the Youngster are bringing in backup, but can he afford to wait that long?

(Well, what better plan than to just tank through, right?)

So shifts his hand, from a palm, to a curled three-- then he turns his hand back and swings, arm and elbow cranking over to the Zubat on his shoulder, throwing it right out of range.

Right then, Psyduck pops out of her Poke Ball and in one wail of her name, the entire building trembles.

No-- not the building. Them.

Psyducks eyes gleam an ominous red, and she holds her head tight in a sort of pain-- a wave of psychic energy bursting forth and petrifying everyone to their spots. 

Like a pulse, Luce's head explodes with pain, and he crumbles to his knees.

Vision is back in a second, but the pain lingers for a second longer.

Luce briefly notices that everyone in the room was affected similarly. The Purugly crawls back up to its feet, but both Zubat in the room, including the one that had its wing on the plant owner's neck, had fainted.

Confusion, he realizes. He did ask her to 'attack' with no specific order, but of all things...

Mars seems to have taken the brunt of the attack, being closest-- so Luce runs over and grabs the plant owner by the arm, taking him to his side. He realizes a second too late Chimchar's Poke Ball is still on the table, and hesitates.

(Chimchar isn't a Fighting type, it won't do much good here.)

(Heck, Confusion affects them even inside the Poke Ball?)

"Oh no you don't!" Mars declares, "Purugly, Faint Attack!"

Purugly shakes off the dizziness and lunges forward. Spinning back, Psyduck leaps before him to brace for the attack.

Water Gun should do more damage!

Luce is surprised when Psyduck actually does churn out a jet of water. He doesn't linger on it yet, though. He lets go of the plant owner's arm and sets his fingers in his lips, taking a breath before whistling loudly.

Then he signs for Scratch.

Chimchar, gathering himself in a roll and a few tentative shakes of his head to get rid of the dizziness-- escapes his Poke Ball, his eagerness gushing forth with a roar and a wild glare.

Mars composes herself, clicking her tongue. "Pesky brat," she hisses. "You think you can do anything with your miserable Pokemon? Purugly! Fake Out!"

A slap to the face makes Chimchar cringe back, whirling back into piles of documents and disappearing under the desk. 

Purugly doesn't wait another second, and Psyduck is sent flying, too.

From the loud taps he can hear and feel from the ground, people (grunts, probably) are coming by, alerted by the noise. 

So Luce gives the plant owner a glance-- and the plant owner looks back, confused.

This would be a situation where speech would really be useful. But Luce can't mourn for what he doesn't have right now. With Chimchar and Psyduck collapsed and out of range, they can't see his commands, either. 

His 'forget everything and charge' plan has just failed terribly. 

Purugly stands before him now, her claws honed and Mars brimming into a grin.

"Now, be nice, boy," she says, "seems like you need a reminder."

Another Zubat whips right into the room, its limb flung forward in a Wing Attack aimed straight for his neck. He tries to look away, to find something-- but his closest hand is in a cast. 

His blood goes cold, and he's left watching the seconds as it comes closer, closer-- and--

--he's engulfed by a pair of arms and he's falling, shoved to the side by a larger, warmer, figure.

He falls painfully onto the ground, and the plant owner breathes heavily above him. He'd shoved them both aside, and-- and Luce suddenly realizes he owes this guy his life, probably.

"That... that was close. You alright?" Luce looks up, surprised. But he nods, and the plant owner looks relieved. "That's great. I'm sorry I don't have Pokemon on me, so I can't help, but..."

The power plant owner's words trail off-- and then he collapses, unconscious.

Luce panics, shaking his head as they scramble to get up. He wasn't hurt-- what's going on? 

"Back to work, mister," Mars hisses, almost irritated.

The owner stands up, almost robotically-- too robotically-- and with a whisper, eyes dazed out-- he staggers forward toward the computers. He's back in his seat, continuing to do exactly what Mars wanted him to do.

Luce watches him move, eyes wide. Mind Control?

"Confuse Ray," Mars explains, stepping forward. She crouches down, her hand on Luce's chin as she made him look toward her. "And I've put your Pokemon to sleep with Hypnosis, just in case. Now, boy, how shall you be punished for misbehaving?"

He can't move. 

Not when he's laying down in this hard-to get up position, at her mercy, and with only one arm to maneuver.

"I was wondering what you would do, coming in so boldly with that arm of yours," her finger trails down his chin, to his chest-- and coming to a rest on the arm brace. "Did you think you could defeat a group of people with just your Pokemon?"

Her finger inches closer again, coming to Luce's chin to lift it slightly.

Her eyes drift to the scarf-- and she uncurls her fingers, shifting it under the fabric to tug at it. Luce's blood runs cold, and he flinches so hard he may as well have been screaming out to the world.

Don't touch me.

But he can't move. He's frozen in place, eyes blown wide in fear and sour, sour panic in his throat. He can't speak. He can't speak.

Get away from me.

He wants to slap her away but he forgets his arm is the only thing balancing him up, so he shoves her just a little and falls back, his head knocking against the cold floor.

"And oh, you didn't even try to hide how much my Zubat scared you," she teases, both hands at her chin now as she rests her face on her knees, "you're so cute. You're trembling from just this. Got some trauma there?"

He tries to shout for his Pokemon. They may be under Hypnosis, but a good shout should wake them up, right?

No.

No, he can't speak. Why does he keep fucking forgetting that?

Right, whistle. He can whistle, that's the loudest noise he can't naturally make but- but it hurts to do that. Because it uses his throat and his throat can't do that much and he's already used it twice but--

--he tries but he can't. He's shivering too much. He can't focus enough to get the whistle out of his lips.

Mars giggles.

"Well, cutie, that's fine. We're almost done here, anyway," she stands up, her smile still on her face. A Glameow and another Zubat makes itself known by the desks, and she waves away two of the grunts by the door. "And once I'm done, we'll all be out of your hair. That's what we all want, don't we?"

His lips purse, and he bites down.

He doesn't move even when she leaves to supervise the plant owner. They're done in almost ten minutes, she laughs and giggles about something Luce doesn't listen to-- and then she leaves the room.

She shows up again a moment later, crouching down to say her cheerful goodbye. She lifts a Poke Ball and Luce snaps out of his dissociation to realize it's an Electivire, charged in and out of its ball with sparks. She's even holding it with a glove.

"Interested now, cutie?" she says.

Luce lunges, but misses as she jumps away.

"I'm supposed to blow up the plant now, since we'd rather not be traced, but that's fine," Mars says, "you wanted to be a hero, didn't you? So I'll leave this place intact."

Oh, don't mock me! Luce doesn't say it, but he glares, snarling wordlessly.

"Hey now, I'm doing it out of mercy, you know. I'm just interested in you a lot," she says. She crouches down and pats his head twice-- then dodges when Luce swipes at her. Unfazed, she chuckles, "Get stronger, okay? Then come fight me again."

And she jumps out of the window, onto a Yanmega-- and waves back.

Luce watches, in muted horror-- as she leaves.

(Just like that?)

With nothing but her Pokemon and the clothes on her back, having done her deed and trashed the entire power plant of its workers, robbing it of all is electrical energy for at least a good while, and...

...and Luce can do nothing but watch.

(Is he really this pathetic and weak?)

Remembering something, he runs out of the room. Dashing past the hallways, he speeds down the stairs and into every room he could find, until he finds the front door.

And there isn't a single Galactic grunt left, inside the building.

(When did they leave? Was he so useless he didn't even notice that?)

-

There's a noise, a count to three, and a loud crash of something shattering inward. Luce jumps, surprised-- but he looks over and finds a group of trainers, Hikers, Collectors and Battle Girls at the door.

They drop their battering ram, a huge log of wood held by two Machoke and a Medicham.

A very familiar Youngster runs in screaming, "COME ON OUR YOU GALACTIC BASTARDS!" and a pair of twin girls echo beside him, raising both their arms in declaration, "GALACTIC BASTARDS!"

"Strange. They don't have guards here, unlike the ones in the meadow," the Battle Girl says, poised for battle. "Is this a trap? Someone round to the backdoors!"

"Someone's there!" a Hiker booms and Luce all but scrambles in a panic.

That makes everyone's attention go to him, and someone yells loudly, commanding his Meditite forward. "Reveal yourself!"

Luce has a second to panic, then the Meditite is already in front of him. He braces himself for a hit-- but it doesn't come.

Chimchar roars, surging forward with a swipe of something angrier than just Scratch.

(When did Chimchar wake up?)

He lunges forward, flings the Meditite back, then kicks off the wall and kicks the Meditite off the stairs, before perching on the ledge and growling angrily at the intruders.

"Someone's there! It's an enemy!"

"Meditite, use--"

"--wait wait wait!" the youngster's eyes widen, stepping forward quickly to stop the rest of the Pokemon from charging forward. "That's not Team Galactic! That's the young'un that went ahead of us! Right? Hey, big brother? That you?"

Luce keeps a careful eye on his Chimchar. This is the first time he's seen him this enraged-- when did he wake up and follow him? It wasn't fainted?

Luce almost feels guilty to have left them back in that room. He should've run to them first thing, hugged and made sure they were alright, before anything else. Leaving them out like that just isn't what a trainer should've done.

So he slips down, knees weak, sitting on the step to put himself in the view of everyone by the stairs.

Chimchar glares at the crowd a little longer, but jumps into Luce's lap, worriedly surveying him, looking desperately for any signs of an injury.

"It's him!" the Youngster says, relieved. He races to the stairs, looking around as he goes. "What happened to the Galactic guys that were here?"

Luce isn't sure if he knows sign language but he signs it anyways, "they left."

"They're not here?" a Battle Girl asks. Seems like she knows sign language, so Luce turns to her gratefully.

"Power's gone. They ran," Luce signs sharply, tiredly leaning against the wall. He points upstairs, "the guy is alright."

"Wait, what'd he say?" a-- Karate guy? Are you a Karate guy-- steps forward, looking confused. "Can't you just talk?"

He gets elbowed in the gut and goes tumbling down the stairs.

"Apparently they're gone," Battle Girl says, "go check out upstairs. We should find the girl's papa up there."

"They're gone? Really?"

"Boo! That's a bummer. Should we send some backup to the meadow, then? Though I reckon they're done chasing the goons out by now."

"Yeah, someone get the police before they're out of sight."

"Right."

"Galactic! Galactic!" the twin girls cheer, "we're gonna hunt for Galactic!"

The Youngster gives them the side eye. "Right, I'll go get them back."

"What about the rest of us? Patrol for anything they left?"

"I guess," Battle Girl waves off the Karate guy, reaching a hand over to help Luce up. "Skim the building for anything, even a Zubat if you need to."

Luce hesitates for a moment, letting Chimchar sniff skeptically at the offered hand before clinging to his shoulder with hesitance, still glaring in hostility but not agitated.

Seems like it approves of the aid, so Luce then takes the hand and gratefully nods in gratitude, to which the girl nods back in response.

The crowd splits into their new roles, and Luce walks up to find another trainer, a Breeder, laying over Psyduck and the power plant owner with a first aid kit beside him.

"Is this Psyduck yours? I gave it a Potion," he says, gesturing at the soundly sleeping Psyduck laying by the desk.

Luce smiles in relief, reaching down to caress it over its head.

"How's the girl's papa?" Battle Girl asks, getting quite straight to the point.

The Breeder smiles in assurance, "his level of exhaustion is quite worrying, but it's nothing a Heal Pulse and a few days of rest won't fix. I can't say for sure, so we'll need the Nurse Joy to make a proper diagnosis just in case."

Returning Psyduck to his Poke Ball, Luce feels a soft hand at his cheek.

He turns around, and Chimchar's signing something.

"Always?"

His heart broke a little. Because this encounter's made it very clear that no, they're not alright. They have to get stronger, whether they like it or not.

"Always," he signs back, and he hugs his Chimchar close to him, and doesn't let go for a long, long time.

-

Seems like Hypnosis, Confuse Ray, and especially Confusion are really not moves you should use against a human, because your brain waves get confused for a long while after it, and unlike a Pokemon's physical stature, humans just don't cope well with it.

(Just a little, he wonders if Mars is okay, but at the same time, he wants to think she deserves a few days of this lethargy for her crimes.)

Luce spends his next few hours feeling like a narcoleptic, and eventually he's led back to his dorm, Chimchar by his side and everyone hushedly thanking him for his efforts and wishing him a good rest.

He spends the next few days in and out of slumber, and finally makes his way out around dinnertime. He gets his next dose of Heal Pulse for his arm, gets the cast taken off for a shower, and has it back on in moments.

He adjusts his scarf around his neck, places his cap in the crown of his head, and heads downstairs. He slots Chimchar into the healing machine, and Psyduck is... still asleep upstairs. Of course it is.

The Center lobby is full of natural wind rather than air conditioners, probably to match the vibe of the town. Luce doesn't mind it at all.

He's greeted with a hug around his waist.

"Mister Big brother! You're alright!" it's the little girl, and thank god, she looks so happy, "Papa's awake too! Thank you so much for saving him!"

Luce pats her on the head, noting that a few eyes were on him, but more of acknowledgement than of skepticism.

"You see, after we came back here, everyone just STORMED the meadows! We chased away the ugly spacemen!" she grins, almost proudly, "and then the big sister brought other people to papa's power place and then KABOOM they were gone!"

That's a very weird rendition of what happened. But Luce chuckles, rubbing her on the head almost in muted embarrassment.

"Oh, and Papa says we can go get dinner together!" she cheers, and Luce balks, "there's a place by the meadows, and--"

"Now now, you're overwhelming him."

Luce looks up to notice the power plant owner, wearing fresh clothes too. He smiles warmly at him, and Luce nods back nervously in greeting.

"I still have a lot to thank you for, back there."

Luce shakes his head-- he barely did a thing. Just tried and nearly crashed the whole situation, that's it. He doesn't need their thanks.

"Well, I don't believe I've caught your name," he says as the girl unlatches from Luce and comes back to her father's side.

At that, Luce reaches for the stylus in his back pocket, clicks around his Poketch for the writing pad, and writes down.

"Lucy!" the girl declares after looking for a moment, and Luce flubs.

After his third attempt at fixing her pronunciation goes to waste, Luce resigns himself to being Lucy for the rest of his stay in Floaroma.

He guesses he can have dinner, at least. He's kind of broke anyways, so he'll take what he can get, if only for courtesy's sake.

It's a nice, quaint town, not unlike Twinleaf. Crusted by greenery in a way that made everyone's moods lift, everyone always seemed three times nicer in these places.

The difference between Twinleaf and Floaroma, though, was probably that Floaroma was full of tourists and trainers, whereas Twinleaf was out in the countryside.

The little girl shows him the Combee, their culture of spreading honey on sweet trees, and the crowd of people that were obsessed with the rare Pokemon that usually gathered around the honey.

He even had the opportunity to slather some honey, and was dragged into a one-sided promise with the girl to come back in the morning to check on it.

Luce finally crashes into his bed at about ten, which is-- not that late, but he's a kid, let him have his sleep schedule.

Psyduck pats at his knee-- oh, she's awake? She ended up watching the house for all of the day, so it must've been boring, if she wasn't just sleeping it off.

I'm okay, he thinks to himself, smiling as he pats Psyduck on the head, watching her squirm away, assaulted by another headache, yeah, I'm just tired.

And Psyduck huffs, glancing at him in consideration. She takes a hand off her head to tug at the blanket, waving her other hand around to suggest sleep.

Luce pauses for a second before his heart drops in shock.

She understood me?!

Come to think of it, something like this happened back at the Windworks too. Psyduck had taken action accordingly, despite him never vocally assigning orders.

Psyduck turns around, tilting her head aside.

Luce looks around for his Pokedex.

[Psyduck, the Duck Pokemon. Overwhelmed by enigmatic abilities, it suffers a constant headache. It sometimes uses mysterious powers.]

He blinks-- come to think of it, Psyduck and Golduck can learn a fair deal of Psychic moves. To some degree, perhaps more than a pure-water type Pokemon should, they have a quirk where they just resemble a Psychic type in certain ways.

So Luce beckons his Psyduck over, and raises his first three fingers from his thumb, tapping it on his head right by his brow.

Psyduck gives him a confused gaze, and Luce explains, "name," before pointing at the Pokemon as an elaboration.

Psyduck blinks up.

Luce thinks he's not imagining the amused huff she gives.

-

Chimchar stands on the brace, reaching over for Luce's free arm. He starts squishing Luce's palms again, sleepily blinking as he does so.

Luce chuckles soundlessly.

Leaving Chimchar overnight on a healing machine has apparently given the little chimp some sort of separation anxiety. Guess Luce isn't doing that again anytime soon.

He sets a hand on his neck, breathing out into his scar and letting the warmth waft up to his chin. 

If he lost focus for a second, he could still feel Mars' hands on his face. He could still hear her voice, tantalizing, saying something that probably didn't mean much in the long term.

He looks at his Poketch.

There's still time before he needs to meet up with the girl, so he turns toward Route 205, Chimchar running by his side.

They make it to the Windworks with plenty of time to spare. 

They had a citizen volunteer service for night watch, in case the grunts come back. Especially now that the front door was busted, they needed to wait for morning for the guys in Fuego Ironworks to come by and fix it up for good.

"Who's there--!! Oh, it's you."

Seems like the Karate guy was posted at the front door for this hour.

"What do you want? Come to join the watch?" he asks.

Luce hadn't expected to see anyone here, so he scurries to find something to write on-- he decides to just use his Poketch, because the sun isn't up yet and it can light up in the dark.

I want to check inside, he writes.

Karate guy looks troubled for a second, then he shrugs, rubbing the back of his head. "I guess it's fine if it's you. Be careful."

Luce nods. 

The power plant was ripped of electricity, but it powers on wind, so it'll come back up soon.

For now, the generator is still strained and not used to operating on such a low energy level-- so the plant owner suggested letting it have a night to recharge before trying to operate it again. Which leaves the town without electricity for a night, but that's of little substance to a very nature-oriented city.

Mornings were cold even in the summer, and nights are breezy with the amount of greenery around. The tourists may complain, but the trainers involved and the locals were quick to roll their eyes on them.

"Be careful, okay? Keep your fire buddy close by."

And Chimchar chirps, happy to be acknowledged. He jumps up to Luce's shoulder as the boy heads into the power plant, surprised by how dark it truly is.

Chimchar, acknowledging the darkness, lights his tail fire a little brighter, staying careful to not burn Luce along the way. Luce smiles and pats him on the back. The little extra heat is no trouble, and he pads around carefully inside.

Heading upstairs, he maneuvers around carefully until he finds the room at the end, where he'd encountered Mars with the Power Plant Owner just a number of hours ago.

Chimchar chitters curiously, and Luce leans in just a little.

Luce paws around the room. The light switch doesn't work, so he continues roaming. He finds computers-- thick, old-fashioned PCs, lining the desks.

He mildly realizes his trip is probably wasted, because the power's out-- but he leans toward the monitors and presses the power button. They made sure to switch off every main power plug this evening, so it shouldn't...

...it did.

Unexpectedly, it turns on, and Luce panics, fumbling to press it again-- he wouldn't want a short circuit explosion on his face-- but the screen flickers on, alerts that it isn't connected to a system well-- and then, a string of words clicked to life.

[The bringer of wars... Your target is the energy of the power plant. The bringer of contentment... Your target is the Pokémon statue of Eterna City.]

His eyes run through the text, flickering in and out of its sentences.

[The bringer of aging...]

It stays black this time, the screen properly turned off. Luce isn't going to try and turn it back on-- he really doesn't think that would bode well.

He knows the rest of the message, anyways. Or at least, Cece knows.

Chimchar chitters, leaning in closer-- but Luce straightens, making sure Chimchar doesn't jump down. He shakes his head, and makes his way to leave. 

-

"Who's there!"

Luce nearly squeaks when the loud voice calls him out. He'd barely made it out when a guy in a trenchcoat zeroes right in on him in alarm.

"Hey hey, that is none of your business," Karate Guy comes to the rescue, putting himself between them. "Who are you anyways?" 

Luce makes his way out, Chimchar hissing at his side. 

"Well--" the man-- Looker, Luce recognizes him-- clears his throat. He retrieves a police ID from his police, showing it off promptly. "I am part of the International Police. I have heard of suspicious activity from Team Galactic in these parts, and thus I have come running." 

Just as late as in the games, huh...

"So, the Team Galactic. Where are they?"

Karate Guy scoffs. "Well, I'll believe you about the police thing," he says, sounding very put off. "But Luce here," he makes a point of setting an arm on the boy's shoulder, "chased those goons away hours ago." 

That surprises the detective. 

Reasonable, because first of all his arm is in a damn cast. Second of all, Luce did not chase them away. And most of all, Luce is a kid. Logically speaking, it is weird, dangerous, reckless, insert synonym here, whatever-- for a kid to do this much. 

"You have?" he says, in awe. Then his funny look makes Chimchar growl at him in hostility, so he recomposes himself. "Very well, I'm impressed. I must thank you-- and all the rest involved-- for dealing with the situation."

He actually bows his head-- which, Luce has to admit, is quite humble of him. He didn't think the eccentric detective character had such a line in the games...

(No... he really shouldn't think of the people like that. )

Karate Guy hums at that. "I'll extend your words," he says with a scoff. Evidently, the man isn't pleased at the aspect of the police not being there when it counted.

Luce nods neutrally, however. 

This was a world of insane destiny and all that, after all. If anything, the logical thing to do here was to reprimand Luce for charging in without a plan, but no one had done a thing yet simply because it turned out fine. It just didn't make sense and he felt empathy for Looker's efforts above all else. He has to deal with all this bull. 

"I am currently in the process of pursuing Team Galactic," Looker reveals. "May I take a look inside to check for any remnants of their trace?"

"Sure, but you'll have to bring a light," Karate Guy says. He legally can't restrict Looker from making an investigation, after all. 

At that point, Luce excuses himself. He was going to be late to Honey Tree viewing.

"Ah, hold on there, kid," Looker calls out. He reaches into his pocket and steps forward, depositing something into Luce's hands. "You are a trainer, are you not? Then please have this." 

Luce takes it, initially intending to return it-- but he finds himself looking at a Vs. Recorder, and he pauses in surprise. 

He completely blips past the explanation of how it works or why Looker even has an extra to give out, because Luce was too busy trying to figure out how or when this even comes into play in the games-- ah, he can't remember. Oh well, it doesn't matter. 

"In the case that you ever meet Team Galactic again in the future--" Luce winces at that. Well wasn't that a charming suggestion, "--then I would ask for you to allow me to look upon those records, for future reference. Is that fair?"

Yeah, fair enough. The Interpol would probably make better use of battle data like this than Luce ever could, after all. 

He has a feeling he'll be meeting Looker a lot more often now. 

"Take care, kid! No more sneaking into potentially dangerous buildings, alright?"

Ah, there's the lecture. 

-

He finds a cafe open in this ungodly hour-- apparently, honey tree enthusiasts make good dawn business-- and orders a warm honey tea to go with his Journal writing.

[Bringer of wars-- Mars, (Ares.) -- Valley Windworks.]

[Bringer of contentment-- Jupiter. -- the Statue(?)]

[Bringer of aging-- Saturn. -- ??? (Veilstone? Lake Valor?)]

He didn't catch the last part of the message on the PC, but he's got a general idea. He went to check just to make sure it's not different from the games, after all.

It's still there, and it's a huge trace to their future plans. They should really plan better than this, if they're going to be some criminal organisation plotting to play god. He wonders if Cynthia was in Eterna because Looker saw all this coming.

Especially the second line. 

Your target is the Pokemon statue of Eterna City. That's just a straight up direction, they couldn't even phrase it cryptically? Even the 'power plant' is alright, there are plenty of them in Sinnoh.

"Big brother Lucy! C'mon! You'll love to see this! It's a Vespiquen!"

He lifts his head, casually closing his Journal. He supposes he can leave contemplation for another day, and focus on building all the connections you're meant to gather on a journey.