We missed Unova. And one of the things we missed the most was Colress. When we realized that Rosa never actually got a legendary, and could in fact be trusted with one, we went for it.

This is a DIRECT sequel story, so you might want to reread the epilogue for Shades of Gray at least.

Beware online-translated French that might not be real-world accurate, ridiculous Colress headcanons we've had since playing X and Y, joke-shipping Colress and Professor Juniper, and minor spoilers for our Kalos-based story that you could have guessed on your own.

As a child, Rosa had always believed that she'd die peacefully in her sleep at the age of 87, just like her great-grandmother. Then she'd thought she was going to die at fifteen, multiple times, after receiving a Pokedex and her very first Pokémon. Even after she'd survived and Hugh started jokingly calling her the Cowardly Lioness, a name that had stuck among her small circle of fans, she'd never even begun to imagine that she'd be willingly walking back into a death trap.

The cave hadn't changed much in the six months since she'd been here last. Her heart still beat harder just thinking about what had very nearly happened here. The memories almost triggered her usual fear-induced imagination spots, but her Emboar, Greg, put his large hand on her shoulder to keep her focused. She let out a relieved breath.

At least she wasn't alone. She hadn't been the last time, either, but Nate had been just as scared and clueless as she was. There was something much more calming about being here with the one person, other than Nate and herself, with any capability of keeping Colress reformed and out of jail.

The two really weren't directly related. Rosa herself had been his one phone call. But that was a story for another time.

At the moment, Professor Juniper was studying the object in her hands as if it were an object of scientific interest.

"Rosa," she said, much more a statement than a question, "I've done a lot of stupid things in the name of science. Some of them even Colress laughs at. So I mean no offense when I ask you...why did you tell me to carry a wheel of cheese the size of my head into a dark cave?"

Rosa really didn't have an explanation for it herself. "I don't know," she admitted. "But N said it was the best thing to do if I was going to bring someone other than Nate along."

The professor had her own memory of N, yelling at her for encouraging Pokémon abuse two years earlier. As if she would ever give a Pokedex to someone who showed such... "And you're positive he can be trusted?" she asked before she could finish the thought.

The memory came before Rosa could stop it. Swirling icicles, an evil laugh, and a bolt of lightning bursting the sharp, freezing blades apart right before they could cut into the two terrified teenagers. The sound of the black dragon's roar as the young man climbed from his back. Nate's hand in hers as he unconvincingly tried to reassure her that they would survive...

She blinked, and the images were gone. "I'm sure," she announced, and that seemed to settle any doubt her companion had.

Rosa might have trusted N, but she still had her own doubts about the safety of the mission. Letting Juniper move ahead, she made a transceiver call before the she herself could continue. "Nate," she said before the boy could even say hello, "what exactly were you planning when you decided to drop us off here of all places?"

"Um...Colress told me to make the suggestion," he admitted. "He said, quote, 'Aurea wants to study Kyurem, and it probably has bad memories of me. Why not let her have her fun with Rosa to show her the way?' End quote."

Rosa clicked her tongue. "Your Colress impression is terrible," she stated. "Work on that."

Nate rolled his eyes. "Some friend you are."

"You dumped me here in a cave, but I still like you."

A distant roar distracted them, and the Emboar made a sound to indicate that his trainer should follow him. Rosa switched off her device and took a deep, calming breath, touching the locket Nate had given her not that long ago. Fortune favors the brave...

"Come on," she said once she'd taken in some talking air. "Let's get this thing over with and just go home already."

Her Pokémon laughed with her, and was careful to watch her back as they moved further into the cave.

The chamber was empty, except for the staff that had once belonged to Ghetsis of Team Plasma. Rosa, Greg the Emboar, and Professor Juniper were, without a doubt, the first living creatures to wander in here in months.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea, after all," Rosa began, taking a few steps backward. She may have been honorary Champion and the one behind New Team Plasma's demise, but fifteen years of habit was hard to break. She had a very well-developed fight-or-flight sense, and she recalled all too clearly the probably false story of Kyurem coming out at night to eat people and Pokémon whole. She blamed the professor for that.

Professor Juniper, on the other hand, seemed far more excited, so much so that her hands shook and she nearly dropped the cheese block. This was the place where the legendary Kyurem was said to wait, the source of the supposedly true horror stories she'd heard since childhood. This was something she'd wanted to study since grade school. If only the Giant Chasm entrance had been found sooner...

"I don't believe it," she managed to say, grinning like a fangirl about to meet the object of her obsession. "I'm really here. In the chamber of a monster."

"Don't get too excited, Professor," Rosa said with a small smile of her own. "I don't think he likes the taste of people that much. Or of Emboar," she added, looking up at her protector.

"I guessed that," Juniper laughed. "Honestly, Rosa, I'd be amazed if he did. You, Nate and Colress would all be dead and digested if Kyurem ate people."

"And so would Ghetsis," Rosa admitted, spitting the name as if it were a particularly nasty curse word.

"And wouldn't that be a relief," Juniper said in mock seriousness. Colress must have rubbed off on her. That had been exactly what he'd said in a similar conversation with the same girl.

Once again, the sound of Rosa's transceiver echoed in the chamber. This time, it was not Nate, but a man with blond hair topped by an enormous blue swoosh. It was like he could sense that she was thinking about him. "Yes, Colress," she said in greeting, not even letting him speak. "We're in the cave, and science is about to be done."

The man looked offended. "Oh, Rosa, I simply intended to ask if the two of you were still in one piece. Is it a crime to ask how two of my good friends are doing?"

"Two of your only friends," Juniper called from her position six steps ahead of Rosa, and Colress pressed his fingertips to his forehead theatrically.

"You're as brutally honest as ever, Aurea," Colress said simply, prompting a smile from the professor. "It makes one wonder how you manage to hold your job with that sharp tongue of yours constantly scaring off the children."

"You've never objected to it," Juniper answered, and for once Colress didn't even bother to comment. Juniper didn't even look back.

Rosa jumped in, then, before he could change his mind. "But that wasn't the reason you called me, was it?"

"No," Colress admitted. "I was...concerned. As my main experiment and my living conscience, I realized too late that risking your life instead of my own may not have been the greatest idea."

"I'm well-protected here, Colress," Rosa promised him. "But if it weren't for your stupid scientific curiosity, I'd be watching a movie with Nate. The least you could do for payment is help me without being a pain in my rear."

Colress had never directly lied to her yet, and he certainly didn't intend to start now. "I can try, I suppose," he said. "I can't guarantee success."

"Trying is all we ask," Rosa sighed, and showed him her surroundings on the device. "I still think this is stupid," she said. "I don't see a sign of Kyurem anywhere."

There was a second flash of bright light, and suddenly, Greg wasn't the only Pokémon outside of a ball. The enormous black dragon, the beast of ideals that had chosen N and tagged along for extra protection, took a good look around the chamber, gestured for the humans and the Emboar to take cover, and roared.

The chamber echoed the sound, making Zekrom look ridiculously proud of himself. Rosa flinched and clung to her enormous fire monster. Colress ended the call to protect his ears and his project. Professor Juniper held up the wheel of cheese as if it were a shield.

And that was when the blizzard hit, bringing with it far too many memories of the last time Rosa had been here. The arrival of the large gray dragon couldn't be far behind, and Rosa once again reached for the heart hanging from the cord around her neck. "Fortune favors the brave," she whispered to herself. "Fortune favors the brave...come on, Rosa, do it for science."

And that was when Kyurem showed himself, looking around at the strange group that had come to pay him a visit.

The professor took one step forward, and suddenly found the beast's enormous yellow eyes focused on her, and she instinctively stopped moving. Kyurem licked his lips, and Rosa gently nudged the woman further, not-so-coincidentally using her as a human shield. "This is why you needed the cheese," she said, trying to keep that last part from suspicion. "N said it was the best way to show you mean no harm."

Juniper put the cheese wheel down on a rock, where Kyurem swallowed it whole. "I noticed you didn't need to bring cheese," she observed, as the hopeful dragon licked his lips again.

"Of course not," Rosa said with a nervous laugh, to Kyurem's disappointment. "I was the one who commanded Greg to beat Zekrom out of him, freed him from Team Plasma's control, and let him live his own life again."

It still sounded strange to say it, despite the six months that had passed since the incident in question. So much had happened in the last two alone, it made her head hurt to think about it all. Colress had become her friend again, Nate had captured the legendary Cresselia and got signed on at Pokestar Studios, and N had found the twin heroes from two years earlier and reunited with his sisters. She had also heard rumors that Cheren and Bianca were engaged, though she knew better than to listen to Hugh's sister of all people and wait for the supposed couple themselves to mention that one.

But this wasn't the time or the place to think about any of that. Instead, she turned to her Emboar with a smile. "Go and talk to him, Greg," she said simply. "We need him to know what we're after, and I'd rather he be told by someone who can have an actual conversation with him." As Zekrom was about to protest, she held out a hand. "Yes, I know you can, but I don't trust you."

Greg just barely fought the urge to laugh at the black dragon's mock-hurt expression, and blew out a cloud of smoke in a greeting to the newcomer. Kyurem replied with a puff of visible vapor.

And then it stomped closer to Rosa, sniffing her out. Greg immediately shifted to defense mode, and he stepped up in preparation to hit back. But Kyurem stepped away from her, and pointed a claw at the locket.

"That smells funny," he said simply. "Did she put it in cheese?"

"It touched the cheese when she passed it to Professor Juniper," Greg corrected. "I thought you liked cheese."

"More than life itself," Kyurem agreed. "You won't let me eat your trainer, anyway."

"Not likely," Greg said with a wary glance. And then he changed the subject. "Look, I'm going to be honest here. We really came here for science, but the guy who sent us was convinced you'd hate him, so he sent Rosa instead."

"Whooshie man?" It didn't surprise Greg that Kyurem knew exactly who had sent them, and it didn't surprise Kyurem that the Emboar knew what he was talking about. "I don't hate him. Don't have an opinion of him at all. Never got to know him that well."

"That's good, I guess," Greg said, before glancing over at the two humans and the dragon standing silent behind them. "The one who gave you the cheese is whooshie man's science friend. We're all here because she wants to be the one to study you."

"And what about donut-head?"

"We figured she'd be the one you listened to, after what happened the last time you saw us."

Kyurem looked past the giant fire pig, and chuckled. "Yeah, I remember that," he said, almost fondly. Like being forced to fuse with the dragon N called his 'brother' was a good thing. "Wasn't there a boy with you last time?"

"He's got a job. The girl is whooshie man's lab assistant." It was a lie, technically. Rosa made a point to stay away from the Plasma Frigate, but she was regularly keeping Colress distracted from most of his research - begging for updates, ordering him not to cause too much destruction, and occasionally asking for him to bring prototypes for her and Nate to test out. Colress was more than happy to do so.

"Then tell your trainer that there's only one way I'll let her friend study me." A clear challenge formed in his eyes, and his sharp teeth were exposed in a grin. "She has to catch me."

Call it instinct, a hunch, or just understanding how her life was supposed to work, but Rosa knew what he'd said before her starter had turned around, and was already reaching for a ball. "Why don't we start this challenge like our first match?" she suggested, and Greg took a step back. "Except this time, Zekrom is in the audience...and Pokeballs won't be blocked."

She threw the ball, and out burst a beautiful blue bird with white, cottony wings. The Altaria appeared on the cave floor ready to fight, and immediately spun around to glare at her trainer when she realized the very strong disadvantage she faced.

Rosa realized this, too, and fumbled for another ball. "You know what, never mind this. I choose this one instead!"

The second-choice Pokémon sprung out, a large blue rabbit with a ball on the end of its surprisingly long, thin tail. A single Glaciate later, and the illusion wore off, revealing a tall, werewolf-like figure standing where the Azumarill once stood.

The Zoroark stuck out her tongue. The game had begun.

Rosa was down to one Pokémon, her real Azumarill. Said Pokémon had demonstrated a surprising resistance to the Dragon-type attacks, but she'd still taken a lot of damage. And Rosa had used up all but one of her catching supply.

She wished it hadn't come to this. It felt like cheating. Nate had captured Cresselia with a Quick Ball, so that had been her first move. And if only she had some Timer Balls...

Well, it couldn't be helped. There was science to do.

She pulled the last ball from her bag, looked to Zekrom and Professor Juniper for encouragement, and threw it.

The Master Ball that Professor Juniper herself had given to her shook once, twice, and finally went still.

Zekrom growled in approval. Now he could go back to N, the professor could do her research, and Rosa could have fun legendary-vs.-legendary battles with her boyfriend. Or whatever Nate was, Zekrom didn't know or care.

Rosa didn't seem to be thinking of Nate at all, and instead picked up the ball in front of her. Suddenly remembering that she wasn't alone, she looked to the professor, and was pleased to see that the woman was already calling Colress on her own transceiver.

"She did it, Colress," Juniper said happily when he picked up. "We have another research subject."

"I never doubted her for a moment," Colress said, though the tone of his voice implied otherwise. "Give me a moment, I want to speak to her clearly, too..."

A few more seconds, and Rosa clicked on her device to see both scientists' faces. It was Colress that broke the silence, without waiting for her to get her thoughts together. "You are coming right back to Accumula Town, aren't you, Rosa?"

Rosa rolled her eyes. She knew, as did Juniper, that "Accumula Town" meant "The Plasma Frigate," and she still didn't want to go back there just yet. Colress may have reformed to a pure neutral character and won back her trust with lollipops and illegal fireworks, but she wasn't ready for a face-to-face confrontation without backup yet. Especially not on the Frigate, which was still nothing but bad memories.

"I probably won't be paying a visit to Accumula Town," she put extra emphasis on the words so Colress, too, would know what she meant, "any time soon. In fact, for the foreseeable future, I'd rather do business in Nuvema Town."

Colress understood where her thoughts headed, and quickly turned his attention to Professor Juniper. "And what is your opinion of this, Aurea?" he asked, clearly enjoying being on a first-name basis with the woman who had unintentionally triggered his undoing. "Would you and Bianca mind if Rosa and I stopped to compare notes?"

"Well," Professor Juniper said, looking up from her transceiver to give Rosa an open smile, "Rosa should know that my lab is open to all of my Pokedex carriers. I'm willing to allow her to come and visit any time she'd like."

"And would I be included in this invitation?" Colress asked innocently.

"If you don't make too much of an annoyance of yourself," Juniper clarified, "you are welcome to tag along."

Colress laughed, knowing he deserved it. "Then I'll be waiting for you both at your lab," he said, and switched off. Both Rosa and the professor followed, and Juniper turned to the exit of the cave.

She looked back at Rosa, not moving forward. "Do you want to lead, or follow?"

When they returned to the Juniper Pokémon Lab, they found that not only were Colress, Bianca, and Cedric Juniper waiting for them, but a familiar boy with enormous brown hair packed into a visor. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, a camera in his left hand, and an Emboar wearing a bow tie stood over him.

Rosa didn't even notice she had called his name until he turned, caught sight of her, and waved enthusiastically.

"I haven't seen you since the castle ruins," Nate said with a laugh as Rosa threw her arms around him. "N refused to let me come into that final room with you. What happened?"

Rosa let him go, and shook her head. "You'll have to wait," she said cheerfully, and Nate made a very unmanly sound of protest. "The professor and Colress know, but I plan on telling the whole story."

Soon enough, Professor Juniper cleared her throat, drawing everybody's attention. When she was sure she had it, she started making the speech that she and Rosa had written on the way home, as practice for when she announced the discoveries to the world.

"As you know, six months ago, Team Plasma returned from their two-year defeat. Shortly after, I found a repentant Colress," she gestured at the somewhat embarrassed man standing beside her, "and we formed a...partnership, you could say. And now, our scientific discoveries have been given a new specimen to observe, from a safe and reasonable distance."

She nodded at Rosa, who took a deep breath and reached for the ball. One flick of her wrist and one flash of light later, and the monster known as Kyurem appeared before the startled assembly.

Then Nate found his voice. "If Kyurem is Rosa's Pokémon," he started, "what makes you so sure that she'll allow Colress to use him for science?"

Surprising almost everybody, Rosa was the one that answered. "Because I caught him on their request," she clarified. "I think he's capable of handling himself." She reached out to stroke her new legendary's head, and called Nate forward. Kyurem recognized him, too, and happily allowed the human boy to give him head rubs.

Cedric seemed to have his mind on other things. "You never told me about Colress working for Team Plasma," he said, and noticed as Aurea looked horrified. "From the way you talked about him, I'd assumed he was just a visiting scientist, or perhaps a love interest."

Aurea's horror grew. Colress, on the other hand, seized the opportunity. "Perhaps by this time next year," he said, cheerful as ever, and the younger Professor Juniper sat down in her chair, glaring at both of them with her arms folded over her chest.

"Colress," she finally said, putting all her effort into keeping a straight face. "As much as I find you special, I can't deal with you right now. Consider us temporarily done."

Bianca's hands flew to her mouth in shock. Rosa did the same, but her gesture was more out of trying to hide her smile. Nate, on the other hand, gave the pair his best innocent expression.

"You guys have the weirdest relationship ever," he said bluntly.

"There's no relationship outside of science," Colress reassured him. "Aurea found out about the gorgeous science babies."

Nate and Rosa both dissolved into laughter, but poor Bianca looked more confused than ever. "Gorgeous science babies?" she repeated. "Professor Juniper, what...?"

"Nothing important, Bianca," Juniper promised. "Colress used to babysit a Sims-happy trio, back on the Frigate. Apparently, they have a file where we have a son named Amanda and a daughter named Steven." She shook her head as Colress impatiently tapped his tablet.

"You left out their new sister, Suzabelle," he added painfully, as if he were contemplating setting up ninja traps to avoid Aurea encountering the Shadow Triad again. "They are not the most sane people I have encountered. Now, as the children in question do not exist, can we please get back to things that are actually important?" He turned to Rosa for assistance.

She gladly gave it to him. "Kyurem," she commanded, and he struck a pose as he waited for her order, "Glaciate!"

"The Hero of Balance." N spoke as if he knew what he was talking about, and Rosa had every right to believe him. "Much more fitting than the Cowardly Lioness, am I right?"

Anthea and Concordia both giggled at the reference, but they managed to keep it quiet. Rosa barely avoided joining. "If you say so," she said instead, scratching her Minccino behind the ears. She'd missed him when she was on her adventure, but N had taken very good care of him as she went through the cave. "Though you really didn't see me when Bianca first gave me the Pokedex. I was a mess."

"But Bianca isn't who you're working for now."

Rosa stayed quiet. She knew that N didn't trust Colress. Anyone who built a device to control Pokémon was no friend of his, no matter how many times Colress insisted that he had only been using Team Plasma for funding and experiments, and had trouble keeping his inventions in one piece. But N did trust Rosa, and believed that she could make her own decisions.

For her part, Rosa never once doubted her friend. The excuse, accompanied by what seemed to be genuine remorse, was perfectly in line with what she'd observed about him. She trusted the professor with Colress, she trusted Colress not to get himself or anyone else killed, and she trusted Bianca to contact her if she was needed as the man's conscience again.

N cut the meeting short, mentioning meeting a friend. His sisters had immediately asked if it was the girl with the Serperior, a question he carefully avoided. She really needed to see who this Serperior girl was...

But that was a question for another day. She was halfway out the door when she got another mission from Professor Juniper, and this one came completely out of nowhere.

"You want me to go where?"

"To the Kalos region," Professor Juniper repeated, as both she and Colress watched from her transceiver. "Professor Augustine Sycamore is a friend of mine, and his field of research isn't what one would call easy to study. So I offered one of my own faithful apprentices."

"Can't he have his own Pokedex carriers handle it?" Rosa whined, and Juniper sighed.

"He did, Rosa. He chose five children, and only two of them showed any potential with it."

"So why did you choose me?" Rosa wasn't ready to pack up and go over to a new region, especially one that she'd heard spoke a different language. She got her native language messed up now and then. "Can't you get other Pokedex carriers for this? I get that Cheren has a Gym now, but what about Bianca, or the heroes from two years ago?"

"I recommended you because, according to Augustine and Hoenn's Professor Birch, Ampharos and Altaria are two of the Pokémon who can accomplish it. You have both of those Pokémon on your team."

"Why can't you send Colress?"

"Because I refused," Colress said, his voice hard at the thought.

"Why?"

He focused on a ceiling tile, processing things that Rosa wished she could read. "The closest explanation I can think of is Je ne suis pas légalement autorisé à quitter le pays. Look that up, it should help you."

Rosa was impressed. Even though she had no idea what he said, it sounded like something out of a movie. Even the accent was flawless. "Have you been to Kalos before, Colress?"

"I did spend quite a few years there," he admitted. "I tried to research some type of energy from rocks, but my studies went nowhere."

"So you got fed up and left the region?"

"Actually, I faked my death and fled to Unova after the Excadrill Accident, but it's all the same. The point of it is, she can't send me, no matter how much you beg. Even if the police have forgotten, my family won't."

"You mean you grew up in Kalos?" Rosa asked, genuinely curious.

"Never mind that now, Rosa." To Rosa's surprise, it was Juniper who spoke. "I'm perfectly willing to tell Augustine that you can't do it, but you have to turn it down yourself first."

"I'll do it," Rosa said, "but I want Nate to come with me. And I want Colress as a translator." She smiled happily. "Maybe I can help him make up with his family."

Colress clearly did not want to go, but he didn't say anything.

"Nate, I can all but guarantee," the professor said, trying to be neutral, "but Colress might need a bit of convincing. We have an experiment running here, you know."

"I'm sure Professor Sycamore has some notes he could share," Rosa bargained, and Juniper laughed.

"That's what we're after," she agreed. "One more thing, Rosa. I'm sure I can get Augustine to send an assistant to pick you up at the airport if he doesn't do it himself, but don't stare at him if you can help it. It makes him uncomfortable, and Colress and I need his help."

"What makes you think I'd stare at him?"

Juniper didn't waste a second. "Because I was a teenage girl once. I'm going to be blunt, Kalos men tend to attract women like magnets, and Augustine has had more than a few people questioning if he got so far just because of his good looks. I don't want to report a casualty to your mother."

"No worries," Rosa laughed, though her voice shook a little with embarrassment instead of humor. "I'll just bring Hugh along, too."

"That might be a good idea. He is a Pokedex carrier, by technicality." Then her humor faded, and she suddenly sounded like Rosa's mom. "I thought that this could be a good experience for you. You, Nate, Calem and Serena all sound like you'd get along."

Calem and Serena. Rosa would have to remember those names. "I'll try to have fun, too," she promised.

"That's the spirit," Juniper said, and she fumbled for the off button.

Before she could hit it, though, she heard Colress again: "So what is it about Kalos men, Aurea?"

He was speaking in that accent again. It was hard for Rosa to understand, but she understood the professor's exasperated response perfectly.

"You're not in Kalos anymore, Dorothy."

"JUST KISS ALREADY!" Bianca screamed from the back room of the lab, and that was the last thing Rosa heard before the screen went black. Rosa shook her head at the idea of not one but three scientists (well, two scientists and a lab assistant) acting like middle school children.

She'd let them handle that branch of insanity. At the moment, she had to ask Nate if he could escape his own job to go on a business trip with her.

This new region would never know what hit it.