Celosia was excited to go on an adventure, and she spent days reading up on the route they would be taking, watching videos of old League Battles, and otherwise preparing to head out. She was actually quite irritating to her housemates, but Celosia didn’t much care about that.
Before leaving, Lysandre saw them off with a breakfast at Cafe Lysandre. Conversation turned to a pair of young trainers who had left the city only a few days before; Mige Fjord and Crystal Lear. Lysandre seemed to find this Mige guy particularly interesting. A lot of it had to do with Professor Sycamore having taken a personal interest in Mige, and Mige’s Pidgeot seemingly Mega-Evolving during the Indigo Conference. Bryony seemed to find the idea interesting, academically speaking. Celosia was just annoyed that Lysander wouldn’t shut up about the guy. Still, if he had made Lysandre so curious then there had to be something there, right? At the very least he might be someone she’d have to face in a battle some day. She made a mental note to look into him later on her own.
After leaving Lumiose City, their first destination was Santalune City. Like many trainers they decided to head down Route 4. It was an easy walk, Mabel said, and it would get them used to such travel. Celosia was energetic, practically bounding down the path ahead of the others.
They fought some wild Pokemon—nothing Celosia wanted to capture, really—and all of the girls got to spar with some of the trainers they met along the way. Even Aliana had a battle or two (though she mostly just hid behind Mabel). Celosia probably got into the most bouts with random trainers, and she would almost always chat their ears off until they found an excuse to leave.
They made it to Santalune about six days after leaving Lumiose City. As excited as she was, Celosia was actually pretty grateful to be back in a city. However, she was also the most used to roughing it and was probably in the highest spirits when they arrived.
The four of them elected to book a room at a local hotel, rather than the Pokemon Center. Celosia was chosen to room with Aliana, which was fine; Celosia was usually too high energy for Aliana, but the younger girl usually kept to herself and let Celosia do her thing (as opposed to Bryony; Celosia and Bryony were constantly bickering).
They spent a period of about a week training in the field east of Santalune City. They would spar against each other, battle wild Pokemon, and challenged the occasional trainer who passed through. Celosia had a particularly memorable battle with Rad Robbie the Rhyhorn Man, which Celosia lost. She swore that she’d get stronger and beat Rad Robbie one day.
The four girls signed up for their bouts with Beckett at the same time. Always eager, Celosia volunteered to go first. Aliana sheepishly signed up for the second bout, Mabel took third, and Bryony took the fourth—she wanted to observe Beckett a few times before her battle. Celosia teased Bryony, saying, “Heh, yeah, I bet you wanna observe Beckett. He is pretty hot.”
Bryony just deeply scowled back at her. Celosia groaned and rolled her eyes; Bryony was never any fun!
The next day, Celosia showed up for her gym match. She got a little turned around in the maze, but managed to make it through without much of a problem or falling for any of the traps or tricks.
The battle with Beckett wasn’t too hard—she led with Honedge and never had to swap out. Beckett tried his best, using Venonat to Paralyze Honedge, but it wasn’t much use. Beckett did have her against the ropes with his last Pokemon, a Dewpider, but Celosia secured the win pretty quickly.
The girls celebrated Celosia’s win by going out for spicy Ransenese food! Celosia felt proud of herself, and was eager to watch the other girls’ bouts. The next day she watched Aliana’s battle. It started off rough, but her third Pokemon—Porygon—ended up cleaning up. Mabel’s battle, the day after that, was surprisingly tough, but she pulled through.
On the morning on Bryony’s battle, they arrived in the early afternoon; a half hour before Bryony’s scheduled start time. While waiting for someone to fetch Bryony, Celosia got a weird tingling feeling in her forehead. She looked around for a moment before she saw someone who looked kind of familiar across the lobby.
It took a second to recognize the boy as Mige Fjord; the trainer from Kanto that Professor Sycamore and Lysandre seemed to curious about. He must have seen her looking at him, because he came over to ask if they needed anything. Mabel politely introduced herself, and who the girls were. Celosia, though, had a hard time believing that THIS was Mige.
She blurted out that she thought he’d be taller. Not to mean, she said, she just pictured him as taller. She added that she didn’t really see what Lysandre was making such a big deal out of—“I mean, you’re just, like, a guy”—and Mige seemed oddly happy to hear her say as much?
They talked for a few minutes and Celosia invited Mige to watch Bryony’s battle with them. He accepted and they would all meet outside to watch the gym match together. Celosia snuck small glances at Mige, trying to get a read on him and sort of measure him up. He was quiet and a little strange. This dude got a mega-evolution? No way.
After Bryony’s fight, the two groups went their separate ways. But Celosia’s thoughts sort of lingered there. There had to be more than that, right? She did a little research on Mige that night; she looked at his (almost non-existent) socials, read through his press stuff and interviews during the Indigo Conference, watched his battles. She couldn’t deny that he was good. Actually watching the battle where his Pidgeot mega-evolved kind of helper her get what the big deal was. The prospect of battling him one day, when they were both at the top of their game, was definitely enticing—if not in part because Celosia wanted to be able to say she beat the first guy to mega-evolve in centuries.
