Lucas can't give verbal orders, and Barry can't focus on the right things sometimes-- but they leave Twinleaf, get a Pokedex, and try becoming trainers anyways.
"...are you guys teaching Chimchar sign language?"
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※ Current Progress: Veilstone City...
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"Luce," Lucian approaches him, once the sky has turned dark with no sign of the situation fixing itself. "It's getting late. Time to head back to— WOAH!"
Duskull jumps out of the bushes with a loud "RUUUU!!!" scaring the living daylights out of him. Gallade jumps out of its Poke Ball, poised to attack, but stops part way just to stare in confusion, trying to figure out what happened as Duskull starts hysterically laughing.
"Wh– you rascal!" Lucian catches his breath, on his knees. "I almost instinctively attacked you!"
Duskull keeps laughing, so Lucian sighs.
Luce stands up, dusting off his pants. Cynthia went over them a while ago, but she hasn't come out yet. There must be a mess of a situation inside, too. There's been messengers running around the area, hand-delivering situational updates.
There wasn't anything they could do to help until they understood the situation better, so Luce stayed here to make sure none of the civilians tried to force their way through the psychic barrier.
"Where's your other Pokemon?" Lucian asks.
Luce points toward the tall grass, where Monferno seemed to be coaching Buneary and Togepi on how to fight. Ponyta, Machop and Roselia were in the grass, taking them up on their duels. Togepi watches intently, while Buneary tries fervently to upstage the fighting type Pokemon with her attacks.
"...they're capable of training without you? That's pretty impressive," Lucian says.
Luce nods, managing to smile a little. They were pretty capable even without him. Most of his battle style is on their own independence rather than his commanding, after all. They were probably more comfortable gaining experience and coming up with tactics on their own, and only after that, they would try to match up with Luce's pacing.
He didn't have a problem with that at all, in fact, he was quite proud of them.
"[How were things?]" Luce asks, when Lucian recalls his Gallade and he takes Duskull in his hands, shaking it like a piggy bank a few times because it seemed to like it.
"Not too great. We have no proof Galactic did it, though everyone's pretty sure it is. Until we get the proof, though, we can't do a thing," Lucian says. "The Celestic Ruins are rubble, so Cynthia's going to have to stay and help out the locals until experts can go in and try to restore it. The fog's pretty bad, so normal flyers can't get in right now either. "
Luce cringes at that. Sure, with the power of Pokemon, perhaps, they could bring the pieces back together. But that must be pretty devastating.
"Until then, the both of us have to stay here to deal with this," he says, gesturing toward the Psyduck. "Modern medicine's not going to work, so an order's been placed at the Herb Shop in Eterna City. None of the Gym Leaders can leave their towns until we're sure no more attacks are coming, but Gardenia says she'll send someone to deliver it as soon as they can."
