The streets of Driftveil City are peaceful and sparsely populated. A kid in a baseball cap dashes around quickly; a cop patrols at a measured rate. A golden ring full of glowing purple energy—a dimensional portal—appears briefly.
"I got these guys on my latest research trip. They're the smallest and mellowest of the bunch. I can answer questions about them if you want, or show pictures of their metamorphosed forms, or you can look closer and pet them."
The cloud of gas fades in and out of visibility. The weird-looking bird(?) spins in place. The regular-looking bird hops slowly but determinedly in Kyeo's direction.
"Nah, not by accident, Gastly hold their bodies quite tightly together with psychic energy. To breathe in one you'd have to stick your face right in it."
The bird moves faster towards Kyeo, taking hesitant little leaps with wings extended. She headbutts his leg gently.
"Depends how frequently she fights! Like most Pokemon, the Starly line evolve upon gaining sufficient battle experience. Most kids who do their Pokemon journeys find that their starter fully evolves if used consistently over the course of getting eight Gym Badges. That'd be...well, most kids take a year off for it but some just do it over the summer, and those that set out to get all eight over the summer usually succeed. Not sure exactly how much time a day they dedicate to training in that case?"
"Pokemon grow up fast when they fight a lot!
—if you ever don't want one to evolve, have it hold an Everstone whenever it's exposed to the evolution trigger."
Porygon wanders over to one of the end zones and starts sniffing the ground. Gastly goes invisible and pops back up behind Bianca, cackling triumphantly despite having utterly failed to startle her. Starly will keep happily accepting pets from Kyeo as long as they're offered.