" Quite the show you put up there!" Lucario praised.

"Pikachu!" Pikachu agreed.

"You came through at the last moment! You should be proud!" Austin said.

Yellow blushed and looked away.

A few minutes later, the friends were standing in the lobby where Hennessy presented Yellow her certificate and symbol to show she had achieved the rank of Viscountess. She even received a small case to keep the items in.

"Well done, madam. I hope for you to participate in future tournaments," Hennessy told her.

"You bet!" Yellow said excitedly as she looked down at her certificate and symbol happily. She had a huge boost in confidence now that she had won her first official Battle Chateau tournament. Maybe she could achieve the rank of Duchess, after all.

...

" Ash, what is our next Destination ?" Yellow curiously asked.

" Oh, we are going to meet Bill," Austin replied while he was reading an ad on the Pokenet about evolution stones.

" Are we going to travel that far back ?"

" No."

" Then how are we going to get there ?"

Austin frowned and pointed at the sky.

" But aren't you afraid of heights?"

" Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt."

" ?" Lucario, Yellow, and Pikachu looked at Austin in confusion.

What?

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[ Sinnoh Region - HIRD ]

The professor smiled at his students.

'Pokemon have three evolutionary stages.' That's something 'everyone knows'. But is it true? Think about it. Plenty of pokemon has only two stages, and some don't evolve at all. Now people will say what they meant was important is that the maximum is three stages. But that's not true either. There are pokemon families with alternate 'third' stages, like ralts – or eevee, which we just discovered a ninth stage for! So then people say, well, any individual pokemon can still only experience a maximum of three forms throughout its life, but even that's been proven wrong by the discovery of mega evolution."

He clicked to the next slide, and began, "The number three comes up a lot in folklore even aside from mythical pokemon. For example –" He looked up at his slide, and stopped short, seeming just as surprised as the students. The slide showed paintings of three pokemon Cynthia didn't recognize – a canine, a flatworm, and some kind of gigantic biped, all with the same green-and-black color scheme. "Oh!" he laughed after a second. "Right, I put this first – uh –" He coughed, and faced the class again. "This is very exciting. Over in Kalos, they have another trinity, the three pokemon you see here. But just recently researchers witnessed one of these pokemon transforms into the other, proving that they are only different forms of the same pokemon! Or, well –" He waved a hand dismissively. "The Lumiose Institute is insisting that just because the worm changed into the canine doesn't prove the biped is also the same pokemon, but…" He gave a knowing shrug. "…preliminary research is already showing that the worm is capable of absorbing more cells, so people are pretty certain we'll see at least one more form. Perhaps this would've been realized earlier if we had focused on the fact of the matter, three pokemon that showed signs of some relationship to each other but with no clear evidence pointing toward what that relationship was, instead of picking one option and assuming that was right until explicitly disproven by the weight of evidence."

This time when he clicked ahead, the professor made sure to check the slide – another display of the cave painting, with space for notes underneath – and gave a small, "Aha." Then, "So, let's go back to this. First off, let's list what we can see for certain here. Each of the lights seems to be the same size. And we can tell one thing from that, which is that we aren't meant to be able to identify them by their image. Either they are interchangeable, or their position identifies them. This doesn't fit well with the lake trinity, where each is meant to represent a separate, specific virtue. In confirmed Trinity iconography, they are always individually identifiable, usually by color if nothing else. So, let's see what we can infer from their positions. We see the lights are arranged in a triangle, one above and two below, surrounding a central point." He looked out over the class. "Is anyone here familiar with Draconid mythology?"

The students exchanged glances with each other. The professor waved his hand placatingly. "It's very obscure. The Draconid is an extinct, ancient people who lived in Hoenn. The most complete record we have of their beliefs is from a missionary who lived a hundred years ago. According to their notes, the Draconids believed the world was the domain of two demons, the land, and the sea, but they were quelled by a savior from the sky."

The bell rang, and everyone immediately scrabbled for their bags. "For your homework tonight," the professor called over the din, "think of other interpretations that could fit! For example, are there not three stones that evolve eevee?"

Cynthia shouldered her bag and prepared to leave, but something nagged at her.

Sigh, I wonder what Austin was doing?

Last time he did tell me, he wanted to get Charmeleon checked out by Bill.

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[ Kanto - Bill's Lighthouse ]

Austin knocked on the door to the lighthouse, stepped back, and waited.

Knocked again.

Nothing.

"When you mentioned this Bill character, did you forget to mention if he was still alive?" Lucario asked, looking around.

"Maybe he's on vacation," Yellow noised, looking at the pile of newspapers on the front stoop. A Pidgey dropped down, deposited another newspaper, and flew off.

" No, he said he would be here," Austin said while making a dismissive noise and flipping over the welcome mat.

"What are you doing?" Yellow asked.

"Oh look at this—a key. And so conveniently placed."

"That's breaking," Yellow said while Austin rolled his eyes.

"Only if you break something."

Now it was Yellow's turn to make the dismissive noise.

"Oh…kay…." Yellow-nosed. Then, louder, "Hello?"

Austin glanced around before drifting in.

"Lucario, what are you doing?" Austin hissed.

"Being nosy—what does it look like?" Lucario asked.

Austin sighed before following him in, slipping slightly on the papers scattered everywhere.

It was a well-lit, cluttered room with drawn curtains, boxes stacked on books, and a lot of electronic junk scattered about and lining the walls. The approximate center—where the group was now standing—was probably the cleanest area, with a dusting of papers.

Austin's red eyes lit up as a worrisome thought filled his head.

Something might have happened to Bill.