Kanto Region, Pallet Town.
"It's over, it's over, Professor Oak, please just wait for me!"
A boy in pajamas ran down the small road, his name Ash, ten years old as of today. He was supposed to have arrived at the local research lab to receive his first Pokémon and begin his journey. But the excitement of the night before had kept him awake until almost morning, and he had slept through the alarm, and now the three starter Pokémon that Professor Oak kept for beginning Trainers might already be gone.
"Ash, what's the hurry?"
A gentle voice came from a house down the street. Ash glanced over and saw a man who looked no older than his late twenties leaning back in a chair at his front door, a yellowed book open in one hand, taking in the morning sun without any particular urgency.
"Mr. Lucien, I'm sorry, I can't stop, I'm late and I might have missed the starter Pokémon! I'll come visit when I get back!"
He kept running without waiting for a reply.
Mr. Lucien had moved to Pallet Town before Ash was born, from somewhere else, and he kept many Pokémon at his house, including some that Ash had never seen anywhere else. Ash had been going there to visit since he was small, and Mr. Lucien had always been kind about it, patient with questions, happy to introduce him to whatever Pokémon happened to be around that day.
At the research lab, Professor Oak was drinking tea.
"Ash. You're a little late. The other Trainers from town have already chosen."
"What?!" Ash looked around the empty enclosures with the expression of someone who has just been struck by something invisible. "Professor Oak, there really aren't any left?"
"There is one, actually," Professor Oak said, thoughtfully. "Though that particular Pokémon's personality may not be the easiest fit."
"I can make it work with anyone!" Ash said immediately.
"Is that so." Professor Oak smiled and took out a Poké Ball. A flash of white light, and a Pikachu appeared in front of Ash, looking at him with an expression that made its opinion of the situation entirely clear.
Later that morning, Lucien heard his name called from outside.
He turned. Ash was at the front path, Pikachu on a leash behind him, the Pikachu dragging its feet with great emphasis.
"Mr. Lucien! I got my first Pokémon!"
Lucien looked at the Pikachu, then at Ash.
So they had still found each other. The future had changed in a great many places, but some things, it seemed, were simply going to happen.
"Are you setting off today?" he asked.
"Yes! I'm going to become the greatest Pokémon Master in the world!" Ash's face carried the specific expression of someone who has decided something and has no intention of being talked out of it.
Lucien laughed, quietly and genuinely. "Good luck, Ash. As it happens, I am also planning to travel for a while. It may be some time before I come back to Pallet Town."
Ash blinked. "Where are you going?"
"To visit a friend," Lucien said. He reached into his coat and produced a small yellow sphere, holding it out. "A gift for you."
"What is this?"
"A Light Ball. Your Pikachu might find it useful."
"Thank you, Mr. Lucien!" Ash took it with both hands.
Then something visibly surfaced in his expression, the look of someone who has just made a connection.
"Mr. Lucien, your name is the same as the founder of the Pokémon League!"
Lucien blinked. "Oh?"
"We learned about it at Pokémon school," Ash said. "Thousands of years ago, when humans and Pokémon were still strangers and sometimes enemies, there was someone named Lucien who came and led them to live together, and started the very first Pokémon League. There's even a statue of him in Viridian City!"
Lucien smiled. "A coincidence, I imagine."
"Definitely!" Ash nodded cheerfully. "Nobody lives that long. Anyway, Mr. Lucien, Pikachu and I are leaving now!"
"Safe travels, Ash."
"Okay!"
Lucien watched the boy and the reluctant Pikachu disappear down the road, and stood there for a moment after they were gone.
Then he turned back inside, and stepped through Hoopa's ring back to the Tree of Beginning.
"Lucien, where do we go next?" Hoopa asked immediately, face bright with anticipation.
"Unova."
"Yes!"
Lucien settled the Pokémon into their Poké Balls, stepped through the ring, and arrived in a city.
Lacunosa Town, or rather, what Lacunosa Town had become after more than two thousand years. Tall buildings where the original small houses had been, clean asphalt roads where the dirt paths had wound, trees planted along both sides with benches beneath them. A new era, built on the same ground where he had once done something that apparently still mattered to the people living here.
He had heard the legend before, secondhand. The version told in Lacunosa Town was this: thousands of years ago, before humans and Pokémon had found their way to each other, a terrifying Pokémon came to the village at night and took people. Then a Trainer from a distant land arrived and defeated it, and earned the trust of Kyurem, the strongest Dragon, and rescued the villagers. In gratitude, they had built a statue and passed the story down, generation to generation, to this day.
Standing before the statue, Lucien could barely make out its face in the afternoon light, but the memories it carried were clear enough. He remembered the village's fear then, and the creature behind it, the Froslass they had called a man-eating monster, which he and Kyurem had sealed inside an Ice Stone after understanding what it truly was.
More than two thousand years had passed since that day. He had always wondered whether Froslass had ever come to understand what it had done.
Then he heard a boy's voice from nearby.
"A Froslass! There's a Froslass right there, I want to catch it!"
Lucien turned. A young Trainer with a Pokédex was tracking something in the alley beside the statue. A pale, elegant shape drifted into view for a moment, turned, and disappeared without a sound.
Lucien went still. He reached out through Kyurem's connection.
Is that the one?
Yes, Kyurem answered, without speaking aloud.
The seal. Kyurem's Imprisonment could only dissolve on its own when the sealed Pokémon genuinely understood and turned away from what it had done. If the seal was gone, then Froslass had arrived at that understanding on its own, in its own time.
Lucien breathed out slowly.
He did not leave Lacunosa Town. Instead, he stayed and watched.
Over the following days, Froslass moved through the town constantly, doing small things. It found Pokémon that had wandered away from their Trainers and led them back. It drifted into a house where someone had forgotten to turn off the gas and set off the alert before anything happened. It put itself between a group of children and a wild Pokémon that had come down from the mountain too close to the residential area.
One thing at a time. Nothing announced. No audience sought.
A legend began to form around it, the way legends do: told first by one Trainer to another, then spreading through the broader network, reaching other towns, other regions. Trainers came from considerable distances to see or attempt to catch the helpful Froslass of Lacunosa Town. None succeeded. Froslass showed no interest in being caught. It had, apparently, found its own arrangement with this place.
The people it helped began leaving poffins and sweets on their windowsills without comment. The children it had protected from the wild Pokémon waved at it when it passed, with the easy familiarity of people waving at a neighbor.
On a clear afternoon with a light wind moving through the town, Lucien stepped into Froslass's path.
It stopped and looked at him. Something in its eyes recognized him, even after all this time.
"It seems you've understood," Lucien said. His voice carried a warmth that had not been there the first time they had spoken, all those centuries ago. "Do you remember what I said to you, back then?"