Hoopa's face went slightly pink. It scratched its head and laughed. "That Hoopa isn't the same as this Hoopa! This Hoopa will only help Lucien. No more causing trouble!"
Professor Oak's expression had shifted into thoughtful consideration. "Melmetal. A Steel-type that evolved from a Meltan colony, possessing the ability to produce and shape metal. In historical accounts, it was considered a significant force for addressing large-scale crises: reinforcing defenses, rebuilding infrastructure, that kind of application."
Lucien looked at him with mild surprise. "Have you met one, Professor?"
"Ah, no, actually." Professor Oak scratched the back of his head with a slightly embarrassed expression. "Everything I know about it came from contacts in the Alola Region."
Lucien absorbed that.
"No need to make this complicated!" Hoopa announced, with the confidence of someone who had just realized it could solve the problem immediately. It stretched out one small hand and opened a golden ring. "Hoopa, Seek!"
The ring expanded. A stream of silver light poured through it.
And then Melmetal was there.
It landed on the ground with a weight that the floor acknowledged.
Its body was composed entirely of a liquid-silver metallic substance that moved and settled with the quality of something between solid and flowing, dark gray nuts embedded in its neck, chest, and limbs, a single small golden nut sitting atop its head, and one dark gray orb rotating slowly at its center: its eye.
Its arms were long and enormously heavy, ending in iron fists that simply sitting still on the ground seemed to require the earth's cooperation. The metallic sheen around it was cold and absolute. Even breathing near it felt like the air had developed opinions.
Ash and the others looked up at it and went quiet.
Melmetal looked around at its new surroundings with the expression of something that had absolutely no idea what had just happened and was taking stock before deciding what to do about it. A low, resonant metallic sound came from somewhere in its chest, vibrating the air slightly.
"Hoopa called you!" Hoopa informed it helpfully. "Lucien needs your help."
Lucien stepped forward immediately. "I'm extremely sorry for the abrupt arrival. I didn't intend to bring you here by force." He kept his voice calm and direct.
"I came because my world is facing a serious crisis, and your strength is essential to resolving it. In exchange, I'll do whatever I can to fulfill whatever you need. And if you're unwilling, I'll have Hoopa send you back right now. No pressure."
Melmetal's single dark orb moved slowly to Lucien. Held there. Then moved to Kyurem.
The metal composing Melmetal's body shifted subtly, something between wariness and recognition. Kyurem looked back at it without expression.
Then, through telepathy, Kyurem sent something directly into Melmetal's awareness. Not words. Images. Burning landscapes, the suffering of countless Pokémon and people, the shape of a crisis that was already building and would arrive whether or not anyone was ready for it.
Melmetal went still.
The silence in the café stretched.
Then, slowly, Melmetal's liquid-metal body undulated. The key nut at the top of its head shifted with a faint, quiet sound. One enormous iron fist rose, not threatening, not striking, just moving — and pointed at Lucien.
A low, resonant sound came from it.
Ash's face immediately broke into relief. "It agreed!"
Lucien was genuinely surprised by how quickly and simply that had resolved. He had prepared for considerably more negotiation.
Hoopa circled Melmetal in delighted loops. "Lucien can go back and save his Kingdom!"
The room's mood lifted at once. Hoopa retracted its seeking ring and steadied itself, prepared to open a proper dimensional portal. Melmetal had joined the group. The last piece was in place.
Lucien did not linger. He said his goodbyes to Professor Oak, to Meray and Baraz, the latter two gladly handing over the Prison Bottle containing the sealed Imprison power at his request.
They had no further need of it now that Hoopa had become whole, and if Lucien said it was useful, they were inclined to trust him. He put it away carefully.
He turned to Hoopa. "Thank you. For everything."
"Hoopa is ready!" It nodded vigorously, then raised its hands.
The golden ring blazed with light, expanding until it was vast, tearing through the space in front of them with a sound like the world deciding to move aside.
A stable portal opened, wide and steady, the dimensional boundary clear and smooth rather than chaotic and dangerous as it had been before. Through it, the faint outline of a distant spacetime was visible.
Lucien turned to say goodbye to the group, and immediately noticed that Ash was not where he had been.
"Where's Ash?"
"Mr. Lucien!!"
Ash came running from down the street, slightly out of breath, carrying something flat and rectangular under one arm. He held it out when he reached Lucien.
"A tablet. I went and bought it with my travel money. It has a lot of Pokémon data on it. I thought it might be useful to you."
Lucien looked at it, then at Ash, and felt the warmth of it settle in his chest.
"Thank you, Ash. Truly." He thought for a moment, then reached into his coat and produced a Poké Ball. It was old-fashioned in design, handmade, the craftsmanship of a skilled artisan in his kingdom. "I traveled quickly and didn't bring gifts. This is a Poké Ball from my world. It isn't worth much, but it's something to remember this by."
Ash took it in both hands and held it with the same seriousness he gave everything that mattered to him. "I'll keep it always."
Nearby, Professor Oak was looking at the Poké Ball with an expression Lucien did not fully notice: the controlled excitement of a researcher who has just encountered something that does not fit his existing framework and is very much looking forward to understanding why.
Because by his knowledge, Poké Balls had been invented roughly three hundred years ago, in the Hisui Region, in the era of the researcher Laventon. And if Lucien's world predated that by thousands of years, then what exactly was in Ash's hands right now?
Lucien did not notice Professor Oak's expression. His own thoughts had gone somewhere else.
He was looking at Ash and the others, and thinking that on the day this boy was born, Lucien himself had probably already been gone for centuries.
He had spent years pursuing something close to immortality, and had not yet found it. The gap between his era and theirs was not something sentiment could bridge.
He took a slow breath and faced all of them.
"Goodbye, everyone. Thank you for everything."
"Goodbye, Mr. Lucien!"
"Hoopa will miss you!" The small Hoopa waved both arms at full extension.
Lucien smiled at them all, turned, and stepped through the portal.
...
Hoopa was reclining on its golden throne, accepting the worship of the townspeople with its characteristic air of someone who has fully earned this and expects it to continue indefinitely.
Then the space in front of it shifted.
A familiar ring opened.
A familiar figure stepped through.
Hoopa's eyes went wide. "You?! How did you get back?! That's impossible!" Its face was a portrait of genuine shock. It had sent these two into another dimension. Without Hoopa's own intervention, return should have been completely out of the question. What had happened?
Lucien's mouth curved slightly. "I should actually thank you for that."
The unease that crossed Hoopa's face was immediate.
It reached for its rings, ready to send them away again, and then it saw what Lucien was holding: a flask, old and unusual, its lid open. A powerful suction force emanated from within it, and Hoopa felt something it had not felt in a very long time.
Its power leaving it.
Panic crossed its face. It tried to move, tried to summon a ring, tried to do anything, and found that Kyurem had frozen it in place without making any particular effort about it.
"No—!"
Hoopa's enormous Unbound form shrank rapidly, visibly, until a small Hoopa Confined was standing in front of them, staring at its own hands in complete disbelief.
"You hateful human! What did you do to me?!"
"Much cuter," Lucien said, with genuine amusement. He looked at Hoopa evenly. "Come with me, Hoopa."
"Absolutely not!" Hoopa summoned a ring immediately and launched an attack.
Lucien did not move. He simply watched Hoopa.
Kyurem didn't even need a full moment. Hoopa was frozen mid-attack before it finished the motion. Lucien took out a Poké Ball and caught it. The ball shook vigorously for a considerable time before settling.
The townspeople stared.
"What did you do to Lord Hoopa?!" one of them demanded.
Lucien looked at the crowd. "Hoopa is not a gentle Pokémon. With its temperament, it would have destroyed this place eventually. Take the wealth it left you and build something real with it."
He mounted Kyurem and departed before anyone found the words to respond.
He had been heading back toward Galar when Kyurem's voice reached him.
Zygarde is waiting below.
Lucien looked down. He spotted the familiar black and green canine form almost immediately. "Let's see what it needs."
He landed.
Zygarde looked at him for a moment. There is a Pokémon that wants to meet you.
The forest in the heart of Kalos was different from every other forest Lucien had walked through. The air was cleaner here, the life force almost tangible, moving through the space between the trees like water in a very slow current.
The further they went, the more present it became, until breathing felt like drinking something.
Birds called in the canopy. Vines wrapped ancient trunks. Wildflowers grew where they chose, untouched and unmanaged, radiating a kind of vitality that had nothing to do with cultivation.
The forest opened.
An endless field of flowers stretched before them, pink and blue and gold, moving gently in a breeze that seemed to exist only here. Warm light came through the canopy in scattered points and rested on the petals.
In the center of the field stood a figure.
Lucien went still.
Xerneas. Its coat of black and gold, its eight branching antlers catching the filtered light, its head bowed to the flowers.
As though it heard or sensed the arrival of the group, it raised its head slowly. Its gaze found Lucien, direct and unhurried, holding within it a quality of presence that was different from simply being very powerful. Something older and quieter than that.
"You've come, human."
Lucien looked at Zygarde, then back at Xerneas, his expression genuinely uncertain. "Xerneas. What did you want to speak with me about?"
"Your name is Lucien?"
"Yes."
"I heard of your actions from Zygarde." Xerneas's voice was very soft, carrying that particular quality of things that have existed long enough to find no reason to be loud.
"A human who cares deeply about Pokémon. Who built a kingdom, alone, where people and Pokémon live together as one. Where war does not fall on Pokémon as victims, and humans and Pokémon depend on each other and live well."
It paused.
"And I have seen the changes beginning to move through this land. I believe that is also because of you."
Lucien said nothing for a moment.
"Lucien," Xerneas said. "Why do you do all of this?"
Lucien considered the question honestly. "To build a world where people and Pokémon can live together well. Something beautiful, or at least something better than what exists."
"Such an enormous undertaking. It must take a very long time."
"As long as I can do it without a guilty conscience, that's enough."
Xerneas repeated the words quietly to itself. "Without a guilty conscience." It looked at him for a long moment. "Is that your philosophy, Lucien?"
Lucien frowned slightly, not entirely sure where this was going.
Xerneas and Zygarde exchanged something between them, wordless. Then Xerneas turned back to Lucien and took a slow step forward. Then another.
The eight antlers on its head began to glow, the light building from each branch, seven colors layering over each other, brightening with each step until the whole field was suffused with it.
"Lucien. I agree with what you are building, and the spirit in which you build it. Today, I will give you what you have been looking for."
The light reached Lucien before the words had fully settled.
It was not like anything he expected. There was no pain, no dramatic transformation. It was simply warmth, moving through him like the first warmth after a long cold, spreading from his chest outward until it had touched everything.
A silver, living light, ancient and impossibly gentle. The weariness he had been carrying, the accumulated strain of years of work and the lingering disruption from the dimensional crossing, all of it was quietly, thoroughly dissolved.
When it faded, Lucien stood in the flower field and understood, in his body rather than just his mind, that something had changed permanently.
He would not age. He would not weaken with time or fail to illness. He would remain, as long as nothing capable of destroying him entirely chose to do so.
This was eternal life.
The realization moved through him slowly, and with it came a quiet storm of feeling that he did not entirely know what to do with. Why had Xerneas done this? Without condition, without negotiation, simply looked at him and given him what he had been reaching toward for years?
Xerneas's voice, when it came, was gentle but carried within it something that was not soft.
"I give you this not so that you can be free of time, but so that you have enough time to walk the path you have chosen. Protect the kingdom you have built. Protect the bond between humanity and Pokémon. Let the peace you carry in your heart have the time it needs to truly last."
Lucien was quiet for a long moment. He breathed in the flower-scented air, and the feeling in his chest settled into something he recognized as gratitude, deep and real.
He bowed.
"Thank you. I understand."
Xerneas gave a small nod. The seven-colored light on its antlers faded gently, petal by petal.
"I see your heart clearly, Lucien. Go now. Your world needs you more than this place does."