Captain Cyllene's office was on the ground floor of the Galaxy Team Headquarters. As Steven followed Akira through the entrance hall, a low moan of pain drifted from a room beside the staircase leading up to the higher floors.
"That's the medical room," Akira said quietly, noticing where Steven's gaze had wandered.
Steven gave a small nod. It made sense. In this era, Pokémon battles were still a raw and unpredictable affair. People got hurt — whether they were trying to battle or simply trying to catch a wild Pokémon. The relationship between humans and Pokémon here was still full of fear and misunderstanding on both sides. That was normal, Steven reminded himself. Even in the present day, with centuries of accumulated knowledge, not every mystery of the Pokémon world had been fully explained.
Akira stopped before a solid wooden door and knocked firmly.
"Captain Cyllene! I've brought him!"
"Permission granted," came the reply from within. "Enter."
The voice was calm and measured, unmistakably female. Steven had half-expected something different, though he wasn't sure why.
The door swung open with a low creak.
Steven's first impression of Captain Cyllene was one of contained strength. She had a sharp, stern face and short, vivid blue hair that framed her features like a blade. Even seated behind her desk, she projected an air of quiet authority that filled the room. She set down the report she had been reading without a flicker of expression and looked up at the two of them as they stepped inside.
Akira immediately shifted to the side, leaving Steven to stand alone before the Captain's gaze.
Steven waited. He kept his posture easy, unhurried, and studied her in return. She was the one who had asked to see him. It would be strange for him to speak first.
"A pleasure to meet you," Cyllene said at last, folding her hands on the desk. "I am Cyllene, Leader of the Galaxy Team's Survey Corps."
"Likewise, Captain Cyllene." Steven dipped his head politely. "My name is Steven."
Cyllene's sharp eyes moved over him carefully. "You resemble someone I've met before," she said, her voice low. "Your appearance, your clothing — even the feeling you give off. It's remarkably similar."
Steven's brow furrowed slightly. "If I may ask — where is that person now?"
"She left," Cyllene answered.
"Left?"
Cyllene nodded. "She arrived here much the same way you did — wearing clothes no one in Jubilife Village had ever seen before. She stayed for two years. In that time, her knowledge and effort helped the village develop into what it is today."
Two years.
Steven turned the number over in his mind. His mother had been absent for more than ten years by his reckoning. Yet the person Cyllene described had apparently arrived, lived here for two full years, and departed only recently.
"When exactly did she leave?" he asked.
"Half a month ago."
Steven went still for a moment. Half a month ago — and yet she hadn't returned to the present world. Or at least, not to any point in time that had caught up with him yet. He thought of what Dialga had told him, of the layered, shifting nature of time itself. Perhaps there were other points still to come. Other crossings. The possibility unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
"She told me she was a messenger of time," Cyllene continued. "That she had come to the Hisui Region for a specific purpose — to locate certain Legendary artifacts. Once she had found what she was looking for, her reason for staying was gone."
She paused, then drew a folded report from the stack on her desk and opened it to a page on which a rough but detailed portrait had been sketched. She set it so Steven could see.
"However," Cyllene said, her tone sharpening slightly, "the very artifact she was searching for has now been discovered again somewhere in the Hisui Region."
Steven stared at the portrait. The drawing depicted a cylindrical stone — familiar in shape, simple in form, yet resonant with something he couldn't quite name. His mind went immediately to the stone he had purchased in Kalos.
Hisui Region. An artifact. So this is why Dialga sent me here.
The more he thought about it, the more it felt less like coincidence and more like a deliberate arrangement. Why would an artifact tied to a Sinnoh Legendary Pokémon end up for sale in Kalos, of all places? The whole chain of events had Dialga's fingerprints on it.
"Our investigators found this sketch," Cyllene said, "but not the team member who made it." A faint crease appeared between her brows. "Field work in Hisui carries serious risks. Even our most experienced members return injured. The medical technology available to us is limited, and some injuries take weeks to recover from."
She closed the report and looked at Steven directly. "I would like to invite you to join the Survey Corps. Your goal and ours appear to align — bringing that stone back safely."
Steven's mouth curved into the faintest smile. "With all due respect, Captain, I would have sought out the Survey Corps regardless. Having a proper identity here will make it easier to move around and work. Joining makes sense." He glanced briefly toward the window. It occurred to him now that the person Cyllene had described — the one whose efforts had shaped Jubilife Village over those two years — was almost certainly his mother. Her knowledge of the future, her quiet way of fixing things without drawing attention to herself. It was exactly what she would have done.
He found that thought oddly grounding.
The Galaxy Team of this era was something genuinely impressive, Steven reflected. A Survey Corps for field research, a dedicated laboratory, a medical room, a security detail — it resembled a small, self-contained League facility in its own right. It was strange to think that, a thousand years from now, a version of this same organisation would be founded by a man who dreamed not of building a world, but of tearing it apart and starting over.
"One more question, if you'll allow it," Cyllene said. Her gaze was still measuring him with that same careful curiosity. "What is your relationship to her? To the woman who was here before you?"
"She's most likely my mother," Steven said simply.
The silence that followed lasted exactly one beat too long.
Cyllene's expression did not crumble, but it did — briefly — lose its composure. She studied Steven's face again, as if rechecking something she had already observed. Aya, as she remembered her, had looked no older than twenty. The young man standing in front of her now looked perhaps sixteen or seventeen.
A twenty-year-old mother and a sixteen-year-old son. The math was uncomfortable no matter how she arranged it. Cyllene pressed two fingers to her temple.
"You look more like siblings," she said at last, her voice carefully neutral.
She turned to Akira, who had been standing quietly to the side. "Akira. Take Steven to the team dormitories and see that he gets a survey uniform."
Akira blinked. "Directly? What about the entrance examination?"
Cyllene fixed him with a look that required no elaboration.
"I'll handle the examination in my own way," she said. "For now, take him to the dormitories."
"R-right. Sorry." Akira scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grimace and gestured for Steven to follow. "Come on, Steven."
The Survey Corps dormitories were also on the ground floor, not far from Cyllene's office. As they walked, Akira fell into a slightly nervous stream of chatter.
"I should warn you upfront — the Survey Corps is genuinely dangerous work," he said, glancing sideways at Steven. "Last time I was out in the field, I took a direct Thunderbolt. Was bedridden for two full days before I could walk straight again."
Steven kept his expression politely neutral. He made no comment about the fact that being struck by Thunderbolt — even an indirect aftershock of one — would put most people in a modern hospital for far longer than two days, let alone the medical conditions of this era. Akira seemed to regard his two-day recovery as embarrassingly slow. Steven decided this was not the moment to offer that particular perspective.
"It's alright," Steven said, managing a calm smile. "I'm no stranger to danger."
Akira gave him a doubtful look. Steven's clothes were clean, his hands steady, and nothing about him suggested he had ever been close to a battle he couldn't control. There were no obvious scars. Maybe they were hidden.
"Fair enough." Akira stopped at a door and pushed it open. "This one's yours. I'll grab a uniform and be back shortly."
He jogged off down the corridor.
Steven stepped inside and looked around. The room was simple — a low wooden bed against the far wall, a small fire pit with a pot suspended above it on an iron hook, bare wooden walls. Simple, but spacious. More than spacious enough.
A quiet satisfaction settled over him as he took in the generous floor space. Metagross and Aggron could emerge from their Poké Balls here without any risk of bringing the floor down under their weight. He could let his Pokémon out to rest properly.
Steven nodded to himself.
"Not bad at all."