While Steven and his team trained in the caves and tunnels of Mt.Moon, the people and the pokemon he had saved nearly 20 days prior were now all finally out of the cave as the multiple explorer guides had rounded them towards the exit when they were told of what had happened in the cave. When the explorers were told of the heroic young man who stayed back to face what was probably a leader of the evil people after already destroying at least 100 pokemon by himself, they were shocked to say the least!
To make sure that the young boy's sacrifice to stay wasn't in vain many explorers joined the convoy out of respect for the heroics this young man had displayed and thus the convoy also gained protection as they moved to the exit. This event saved the convoy as the rocket goons had been watching them and had been waiting to strike, but now couldn't because of the overwhelming exploratory force guarding these pokemon and the trainers who had fought in the cave with Steven.
Finally, after 20 days of trekking through the caves at the fastest speeds possible for these injured people, they had made it out and were quickly being treated by the pokemon center located right outside of the cave. Officer jennies that had been standing near the gate entrance were called to the cave entrance where the entire story of the rockets and Steven was told, as well as the explorers helping them get back. The officer Jenny's, not really believing it, kept asking around, only to get nearly an identical story every single time.
After doing some digging, one of the officers were able to get a name as a trainer walked up to one of the officers and said,"Hello, I think I might have battled the guy these people are talking about, and he had given me this note with his name on it, 'Mute god'."
The officers were skeptical about this name but soon another trainer came up and repeated the same thing until they had 5 separate trainers in separate parts of the cave testifying that this boy had called himself 'mute god'. With nothing else to go on, they started to research the name 'mute god' and found multiple articles about his exploits over the past few months, like the gauntlet in viridian and his ralts teleporting with all his clones. It was also rumored that the mute god may have a connection with lance of the elite 4.
The officer Jenny squinted her eyes at this and then made a call to someone, who then transferred her around until she heard someone say,"This is Lance, may I ask what you are calling for officer?"
The officer wasted no time as she asked Lance,"Sir, I apologize, but have you ever heard the name 'mute god'?
Lance practically jumped on top of his desk on the other line as he frantically asked,"What happened?!"
Officer Jenny then calmly explained all of the evidence so far that they had collected and a few of the witness testimonials. At the end of her explanation, she heard Lance laugh and say,"Don't worry about the kid in there, he's probably fine. As for the rockets, it seems like I have not been paying enough attention to them as I should have… Officer Jenny thank you for following your hunch and giving me a call. Help the pokemon and trainers however you can and the league will cover the expenses, Arceus knows those people are probably extremely traumatized by this."
They both thanked each other and then hung up, putting one mystery to bed and letting the officer call in all the help for these people that she needed rather than what she could afford. The police couldn't send all resources to every emergency after all!
Ppp
Lance put down his phone as he chuckled and looked back to the other people sitting at the table with him. Lance was currently sitting with Oak, 2 of his personal assistants and the former pewter city gym leader, Brock!
Lance said to Oak,"That was officer Jenny, Steven apparently stopped another Rocket attack in Mt.Moon. The details… are a little frightening. However it appears that Steven swiftly dealt with it."
Oak, who had been nervous when Lance had his outburst during the call, calmed immensely when he heard it was just Steven being Steven again. Oak had long gotten used to Steven putting himself in life threatening danger after all! Oak also chuckled and responded,"Well, at least he hasn't lost his edge. Tell me, how many was it this time? 60? 70?"
Lance just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said,"Apparently the bare minimum guess is believed to be around 120.."
Brock interrupted and asked,"So, why was this meeting called? And why am I here? I would much rather go back to research!" Brock was getting close with proving the thesis that Steven given him, "Egg moves are inherited".
Oak shrugged and said,"I don't know either, Lance you know?"
Lance sighed and said,"Yes, I was the one who called you here because I wanted you all to know the current Steven has already had significant impacts with what he had done with his company and the research both Oak and I have released."
Oaks eyebrow raised as he asked,"Oh? Tell me more.." Brock was also curious, and nodded his confirmation through squinted eyes.
Lance continued, saying,"Well to begin with, I have started training with the booklet he gave me, and although its only been a month, i've already seen a 14% improvement overall, even though I know none of the exercises actually give experience. I have also noticed how my pokemon are starting to require less input from me as time goes on, like they are learning without me saying anything. I have given this book to my elite four since they need to be as strong as possible as well, and they are showing very similar results and blown away by the improvement they are seeing in their pokemon."
Oak and Brock were both very shocked by this as they both new that at the high level that Lance's pokemon were at, even getting 1% stronger without leveling was extremely difficult, yet Steven's method were so monstrous that Lance's pokemon, one of the strongest people on the continent, was still showing major improvement! This just went to show how much of a monstrous genius Steven was and how glad they were to be able to be apart of this company and its future history.
Brock said with great pride,"That's the boss I decided to follow!"
Lance smiled and said,"Well, I'm not done. Some great news as well as some bad news. The first edition training books that Steven gave me are starting to make their rounds, and already that book is being hailed as a holy grail training guide by the general populace. The book, under strict order from Steven, is being sold only in Boundless Research approved bookstores and Pokemarts, and at a cheap price of only 400 pokedollars. At first, this book was considered overpriced and not worth it, however after a rich heiress went into the shop and bought the book on a whim, she quickly realized its usefulness and thus was the person who started the information ball, which quickly led to more people picking it up, reading it, have a major breakthroughs and then sharing it with everyone they know as well. We literally cannot keep up with the demand, something which I have never had happen in the 6 years of running the league."
Oak squinted and asked,"How much in pure profit has that book made for Boundless?"
Lance sighed and said,"So far the profit sits at around 22 million pokedollars.."
Oak nodded his head and said,"Yeah, that makes sense, as I have been seeing similar notes from all the science papers being released from my side. His egg research papers have already reached a staggering 1.4 million in profit, while the thesis on natures has just been published in Poka Republica Scientifica."
Brock raised one eyebrow and asked,"That's out already? What was the reaction?"
Oak smiled and said,"It was unanimously accepted as a valid theory and research is being conducted in at least 5 different continents and at least 20 labs to see if they can prove the existence of it in every pokemon, no matter the species or region. This thesis, much like the book, is being hailed in the scientific community as an epoch defining breakthrough in pokemon research and many scientists have contacted Boundless to get in contact with Steven. I don't doubt that he will be very busy when he gets out of Mt.Moon."
Brock then had a puzzled expression as he asked Lance,"Wait, what was the bad news?" Oak had forgotten about this as well as he looked to Lance.
Lance sighed and said,"We believe that this book is already or is in the process of being studied by multiple organizations, much like team rocket here in Kanto."
Oak sighed and said,"I believe Steven realized this as well, so I don't think we should worry about it, we all know that no matter if team rocket is wiped out, a new threat is always around the corner. This will happen eventually, we just have to be prepared for it."
All three men nodded their heads as Lance turned to Brock,"By the way, I know you're researching something, how goes that?"
Brock sighed and said,"I think I am nearly there, but truthfully I am scared to finish it. I already had about 75% of this project done by Steven, and when I am done with this project he wants me to move on to one even he is not totally certain about. I would say that one is only about 15% done. So needless to say I'll have my work cut out for me!"
Oak then replied,"Well, I guess he thinks you can crack it where he couldn't, or maybe he is looking for a fresh perspective to go over the problems and come forward with possible solutions or maybe half-truths." Brock nodded, now less worried about the possibility of failing.
3 months later
Steven and his team were 3 days away travel wise from leaving the cave and they couldn't be happier. It had been a long time since they had a hot meal, decent sleep or even a nice bath. They were all pretty sick of being here in this stupid cave. However only Steven was truly happy with their progress and the reason they hadnt left yet was because of what was happening in front of their eyes at this moment!
Before we get into what our hero is looking at, lets go over the massive gains that Steven and his team accomplished while training.
First, all 6 pokemon on his team had now either reached around level 18 or level 19. Prince, Queen, and Baron were at level 19, while the other three, which were Count, Smoker, and duchess were level 18. Overall his team had made some massive improvements. Steven was most excited for Prince, who was due to evolve very soon. This would push his power very high as his stats would instantly get multiplied.
After 3 months of training Prince now had mastered around 65% of his true power. Baron was actually a great battle partner for him and was able to take high powered attack from him, allowing him to gain better understanding of his own potential. When he leveled to level 20 Steven would let him evolve. He now had additional move in his arsenal as well, Psybeam! Confusion was a great move that prince had hone to perfection, havinga perfect 50% chance to confuse the target, however it wasn't very powerful as an attacking move. When Prince unlocked this new move he instantly understood that this was a real physic attack and that confusion was more of a supporting move in between. In fact, Physic was the best move but he was far from accessing that move so this was a good middle ground for him.
Next was Queen, she had learned headbutt 1 level ago, which was 2 weeks ago, and hadn't learned any other moves, focusing on growing her normal energy and normal energy attack. Headbutt. It was much stronger now after training it and Queen guessed that she was missing maybe about 15% to complete the last bits and perfect the move.
Duchess hadn't learned anything new besides double-team. However instead of using the move like normal, she instead trained it by incorporating it into her sword style. It had now become part of her sword arts and her dance of death.
Smoker actually made great progress in his fire cultivation and had learned and completely mastered his new move 'Flame Wheel', as well as starting his training and perfection of another move in his arsenal he had also just learned, 'Reversal'. This was a fighting type move and was almost perfect for his particular defensive style. However now he was cultivating his fighting energy to be able to empower this new move.
Finally we move on to the two newcomers, who both had jumped massively in level and learned many things from Steven tripling or even quadrupling their strengths. With the harsh environment of the cave, the constant daily grind and training and Stevens' heaven sent commanding ability and knowledge, these two pokemon now burst at the seams in raw power!
Lets start with the Count, the Gligar that had its trainer killed by the rockets. He had always believed he would remain a weak pokemon. Everyone knew that gligars were weak pokemon and that they were a single species, meaning they didn't evolve. This was common knowledge in this world, however Steven knew different, and was waiting for the day to make that grand reveal and propel his name into legends!
Making a new species of pokemon was never easy, yet Steven knew exactly how to do it.
Gligar, aka 'Count', now sat at level 19 and had the moves poison sting, sand attack, harden, knockoff, quick attack, fury cutter, and mud-slap. Truly his gligar was powerful, and even level 30 gligars would tremble in front of the Counts power!
Great!
Next was the indomitable and undefeated Baron. Yes, you read that right, undefeated. After leveling to around level 10, he had started training in combat with the others. The others went easy on him at first to slowly intro him into the tough training, but no matter how they attacked they could not beat Baron! He had extremely high natural defense, as well as being only a little bit worse than smoker in terms of defense.
Smoker actually loved that someone else took defense as seriously and thoroughly as he did and the two were basically already best friends. Which was weird when you thought about how their types, Fire and Water, were literally mortal enemies in any other situation. However here on stevens team they found out they were so in common they had better chemistry when fighting than even Duchess and Prince.
In one drill Steven and the other 4 pokemon attacked just Smoker and Baron and yet Stevens side still lost, quite badly at that. This was not a downer at all for everyone, and simply made them push themselves harder to grow! Competition breeds strength.
Back to the present and and Steven and his team were staring at a bunch of pokemon circling a bunch of rocks. However this situation was special as Steven was witnessing (and secretly recording a video) of Clefairy doing a ritualistic dance around what was known as moon stones.
Steven was flabbergasted as he realized what exactly he was looking at. He had no words to describe how he was feeling at this moment. Wasn't this extremely similar to how Ash found the clefairy in the first season of pokemon? It was too similar to be a coincidence and so he let all of his pokemon know to be on edge and be on the lookout for suspicious people or things.
However nothing else happened as they watched and waited and Steven was puzzled. He turned to Prince and asked,"Can you teleport over there, grab maybe 3 to 4 of those stones and then teleport back?"
Prince was slightly appalled and asked,"You want me to steal from them?"
Steven nodded his head and said,"Yes, they are dancing around what is known as a moon stone, which is a component that is crucial to my upcoming plans and was the main reason we took so long and explored basically the entire mountain up to this point. All for that stone. I honestly thought I would only get 1, but there are at least 40 to 50 stones, a couple of them missing wont cause the Clefairy harm."
Prince was hesitant to steal as he was told countless time that that was what villains did and after some discussion, he finally decided that a few stone for research wouldn't hurt.
Prince teleported over while the clefairy were doing a circle ritual to the side and he quickly grabbed 4 stone in his hands. As he was doing this he noticed that there was another type of stone buried underneath the other moonstones that did not look like the rest. He was curious and quickly dug it out from under the pile and teleported back over to Steven and the others. He dumped the stones into Stevens bag and the team then quietly left the area so that they could check the stone without risk.