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Cornus City was known as the hottest city in the entire Norlandia Alliance.
It sat right in the middle of a vast basin, ringed by a chain of active volcanoes whose peaks glowed like flickering tongues of flame, as if constantly trying to swallow the sky above the city. The magma beneath those mountains heated the surrounding air, pushing it along the ridgelines until it poured down into the basin as fierce, dry foehn winds. Those winds swept the region's moisture southward, leaving Cornus City to bake like a giant pot left on a stove with no one watching it.
The temperature never dipped below twenty-seven degrees Celsius, not even in the dead of winter. Come summer, it shot past forty-five degrees without hesitation. By some strange twist of geography, this temperate corner of the Norlandia Alliance had managed to outdo the tropics in sheer, punishing heat.
It was exactly that extreme climate that made Cornus City home to the densest population of Fire-type Pokémon anywhere in the Alliance. Charmander darted between the rocks near the outskirts. Magby tumbled through the alleyways. Litwick flickered on windowsills without anyone thinking twice about it. Fire-types thrived here the way Magikarp thrived in water — effortlessly and in overwhelming numbers.
And at the heart of it all stood the Cornus City Pokémon Factory, a world-famous facility that specialized in breeding Fire-type Starter Pokémon. It was one of the city's greatest points of pride, and for good reason.
Corviknight, however, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
The moment it crossed into Cornus City's airspace, it began complaining. Not subtly, either. It grumbled and clicked its beak and ruffled its steel feathers, shooting pointed looks back at Nova, who was seated on its back.
By mid-May, Cornus City had already plunged headfirst into its scorching summer. Even high above the city, well above the rooftops and chimneys, the heat pressed in from all sides. Waves of it rolled up from the basin below, washing over the group like standing too close to a bonfire.
"Why did we come here?" Corviknight demanded, banking slightly to glare at Nova over its shoulder. "Look at me. My feathers are about to melt off."
Nova opened his mouth to say something reassuring, then thought better of it. Corviknight wasn't entirely wrong.
The Steel/Flying-type wasn't the only one suffering. Aresdra's Riolu had already retreated into its Poké Ball without being asked, clearly deciding that a brief rest in the ball was preferable to baking alive. Sprigatito, on the other hand, was far too stubborn to do the same. It had refused to return to its ball and was now draped across Aresdra's shoulder like a wilted leaf, tongue lolling out, panting steadily with each gust of hot air.
Nova watched the Grass-type with a mix of amusement and sympathy. By Sprigatito's own logic, Aresdra's shoulder was the better option — apparently, her body temperature ran slightly cooler than Silly's, and the cat had made that calculation very deliberately before picking its perch.
Aresdra, for her part, didn't seem to mind at all. Sprigatito was a Grass-type, and Grass-types naturally ran a little cooler than humans. She had figured out rather quickly that the small cat draped on her shoulder was basically functioning as a living ice pack, and she was content to let it stay.
Nova reached forward and gave Corviknight a gentle pat on the head, trying to calm it down. "Stop grumbling. We're almost there. Once we land, I'll let you run the air conditioning for two full hours — ah!"
He yanked his hand back sharply.
Corviknight's steel feathers had been sitting in direct sunlight for the better part of an hour. They were scorching hot. Nova stared at his palm for a moment, then looked at the back of Corviknight's head with a vague, disbelieving expression. He was fairly sure he could have cooked an egg up there.
As they drew closer to the city center, the air traffic control restrictions kicked in. Flying-type Pokémon were not permitted to fly freely over the urban area — a standard rule in most large Alliance cities, designed to keep the skies orderly. Corviknight banked toward the air station on the city's edge, gliding down to land on one of the designated platforms with a solid, heavy thud.
The moment they stepped inside the terminal building and the cool, air-conditioned air hit them, the entire group seemed to collectively exhale.
The terminal at Cornus City was easily the best-equipped in the whole Alliance, and for obvious reasons. The city's extreme heat made certain facilities more than just conveniences — they were necessities. Alongside the usual aviation services, the terminal housed a small medical clinic staffed specifically to handle burns and heatstroke cases, a Pokémon service center with a dedicated cooling room, and a solid row of food and drink chains running along the main concourse.
One of those shops had a line stretching halfway down the hall.
Nova and Aresdra spotted it at the same time. They looked at each other without saying a word, then both quietly joined the back of the queue.
It was a Vanilluxe-branded ice cream chain — one of the largest cold drink franchises in the world, with locations in every major Alliance. In the hottest city in the Norlandia Alliance, a shop selling cold desserts wasn't just popular. It was practically a public service.
They waited for thirty minutes. Neither of them complained once.
When it was finally their turn, Nova ordered without hesitation and without restraint. He got a portion for himself and a portion for Aresdra, and then kept going — every Pokémon in the group got something too. The Cornus City heat was no joke, and Poké Balls didn't guarantee complete insulation. Heatstroke was a real concern even for Pokémon stored inside them, and Nova wasn't taking chances.
The one Pokémon he did not release was Growlithe.
He thought about it. He genuinely considered it. But even the idea of letting Growlithe loose in a crowded terminal was enough to make him quietly put the ball back in his pocket. Growlithe had never needed hot weather to be full of energy. In Cornus City, it would be completely unhinged. Nova had no desire to spend the next hour sprinting through thirty-four-degree heat trying to catch a Puppy Pokémon that had absolutely no interest in being caught.
Once everyone had finished their ice cream, the group felt almost human again. Nova stepped outside, hailed a taxi, and gave the driver the address of the Cornus City Pokémon Factory.
The factory's entrance was staffed by security personnel who checked their visit permit carefully before letting them through. A reception staff member met them inside and led them to the person who would be showing them around.
She looked to be around thirty, dressed in a neat blazer and pencil skirt with black-framed glasses perched on her nose. Her name was Karena, and at first glance she gave every impression of being sharp, composed, and completely in control of her surroundings.
That impression lasted about ten minutes.
At the main security gate just inside the factory entrance, Karena stood at the card reader, swiping her ID badge again and again. Each time, the reader beeped in the same flat, unhelpful tone: Please use your own ID.
"That's strange," she muttered, turning the card over and swiping it again. "Why isn't it recognizing me? Is my makeup too thick today?"
Nova hesitated, then said carefully from behind her, "Karena, did you maybe... pick up someone else's card by mistake?"
She flipped the card open and looked at the name printed inside.
It was not her name.
It belonged to the girl at the workstation next to hers.
There was a brief, very quiet pause.
With no other option, Karena pulled out her phone and called her colleague, who came down to the gate wearing an expression that said everything without saying anything at all. She handed over the correct ID, took back her own without a word, and left.
Karena swiped through the gate, her face just slightly warmer than it had been a moment ago, and led Nova and Aresdra into the factory.
She seemed to decide, somewhere between the gate and the first corridor, that the best way to recover from that was to be extremely professional about everything else. For the rest of the tour, she spoke clearly and thoroughly, walking them through every section of the facility like a seasoned guide who had given this tour a hundred times.
The reason it was called a Pokémon Factory, she explained, rather than a Breeding House, came down to method.
Traditional Pokémon Breeding Houses worked slowly and carefully. Experienced breeders — sometimes just a handful of them — would spend years selecting parent Pokémon with desirable traits, breeding them together, and evaluating each new generation. It was precise, patient work. The yearly output was modest, but the results were consistent: a higher proportion of offspring with high potential or better, well above what you'd expect from wild populations.
A Pokémon Factory operated on an entirely different scale. Industrial equipment, automated incubation systems, and streamlined processes allowed for large-batch breeding throughout the year. The numbers were far higher — far more Starter Pokémon made available to the public each season. The trade-off was that the individual talent levels of factory-bred Pokémon were roughly equivalent to those born in the wild, without the careful selective breeding that Breeding Houses relied on.
Both methods had their place.
The Norlandia Alliance and the Unova Alliance had both adopted the factory model as their primary approach to Starter Pokémon distribution. As a result, obtaining a Starter in these regions was significantly easier than in many other parts of the world.
That said, even the factory model had its limits. The Norlandia Alliance's population was simply large, and demand consistently outpaced supply. Trainers still had to pay an initial registration fee to the Alliance before they were eligible to receive a Starter Pokémon.
Unova had gone a step further. There, children who reached the appropriate age could receive a Starter Pokémon at no upfront cost. The fee was deferred — collected later as a modest repayment once they entered the workforce. It was a loan system, in practical terms, but it meant that no child in Unova was ever turned away from their first partner simply because of money.