Chapter 21: The Meeting

Two nights later, Ace was back in Pallet Town, hunched over the desk in his home office.

The glow of his monitor washed pale light across stacks of books and half-drained coffee cups. Cynthia had emailed him a summary of her notes, and he’d cross-referenced every line with archived reports, dusty journals, and obscure scholarly excerpts.

There wasn’t much out there on the Azure Flute, but one phrase kept surfacing: the Divine Treasure. And every breadcrumb pointed him toward a place he’d heard of only in passing: Calypso Island.

The name conjured up images of beaches, resorts, and vacation ads like bright brochures about a paradise getaway, but the deeper Ace dug, the darker the picture became.

Buried under layers of tourist propaganda were scraps of old research: notes about “the Divine Vault,” whispers of “ancient riches of the world,” artifacts older than recorded history itself.

If the Azure Flute had been hidden anywhere, this was the likeliest place.

He rubbed his temples, leaning closer to a scanned journal he’d found that was written by a scholar claiming she was a descendant from Sinnoh’s earliest settlers.

It described migrations from Hisui to a warmer land, people hauling something too dangerous to keep and too sacred to destroy. They built boats, sailed, and landed on a sprawling island. They had hidden their greatest treasure there.

That island was what was now known as Calypso Island.

Ace’s pulse quickened. “If Cynthia’s right ... if that treasure is what I think it is...”

Scrolling further, another entry made him freeze. The words Divine Challenge stared back at him. He clicked.

The description was brutal.

A test to determine the “prophesied king” of Calypso Island. Eight gym leaders. No losses allowed. No restrictions on Pokémon. Lose once, and you weren’t just disqualified. You were executed.

Ace sat back hard in his chair, exhaling a sharp laugh. “Holy shit. How is that still allowed?” he said in a low and disbelieving voice. “That’s not a price, that’s a death sentence.”

His mind spun. He’d faced stakes before like cults, syndicates, and legends that could tear continents apart, but there was always something in place like a League, the professors, or the law.

This was different. This was a centuries-old and unflinching ritual. Just life or death, and no one in history had ever completed it.

Ace leaned forward again, reading on. Today, the eight leaders were all women, each with champion-level skill, each specializing in a different type.

The people of Calypso revered them. Calypso Island had a normal league with normal rules, but the Divine Challenge was something special that few dared to undertake. The execution rule associated with it still held, unchanged. It was a tradition older than any modern league system.

Ace’s heart hammered in his chest. He tried to imagine walking into such a gauntlet, knowing that one mistake, one critical misstep, meant not just defeat, but his neck on the block.

He’d been beaten before. He’d survived humiliation, even ruin, but never had he walked into an official challenge where failure meant he wouldn’t walk out at all.

He closed his eyes, exhaling through clenched teeth. Is this what I’m willing to risk for the Flute? For the world?

The image of Cynthia’s sharp and steady eyes, in the ruins as she spoke of Arceus flashed in his mind. The professors’ voices warning of enemies chasing the Flute even now echoed.

Then there were his own Pokémon friends like Saur, Draco, Shocker, and the rest who had followed him this far, and who would follow him anywhere. They deserved a trainer who wouldn’t flinch at the edge of a blade.

Ace opened his eyes again, the screen’s glow reflecting off them. His jaw set.

“Looks like I’m headed to Calypso.”

The morning sun poured through the windows of Professor Oak’s lab, but Ace barely noticed it. He stormed through the doors, nearly startling a group of assistants cataloging Poké Balls. His shoes echoed down the corridor until he burst into Oak’s office, chest tight with urgency and out of breath.

“Professor, I need you to dial up Rowan, and patch in Phillip and Phoebe, too. Right now!”

Oak looked up from his cluttered desk, his brows knitting. “Ace ... what’s happened?”

“No time. Just trust me,” Ace pressed, his tone harder than he intended. “Please.”

Oak hesitated only a second before nodding. He tapped a sequence into the holo-caster, and soon the device hummed to life and began dialing the others.

Flickering light filled the room as Rowan’s stern face appeared, joined moments later by Phillip’s confident smirk and Phoebe’s sharp gaze.

Rowan wasted no time. “Ace. You wouldn’t call like this without cause. Were you able to link with Cynthia in Celestic Town?”

“Cynthia?!” Phillip chimed. “You went to see Cynthia? Boy that must’ve been awkward.”

Ace stood in the center of the office, hands braced against the table. He spoke in a firm voice. “Yes, I met up with Cynthia ... and it was fine,” he added looking at Phillip. “It was actually very enlightening. She showed me the Celestic ruins including glyphs that trace everything back to Arceus. She told me about her family’s history, her ancestor Volo trying to control Giratina, and how the Azure Flute was carried away from Hisui to be hidden. She believes that the flute was deemed too powerful and divine to be claimed by one person after the Hisuian hero that Arceus granted it to passed away.”