Diana: the adventurer who hunted Lucius, her own ancestor

The mystery of the pendant doesn't start with Liko, but with her grandmother. Long before the object hung around the heroine's neck, it was Diana who opened the box, read the notebook that came with it and decided to make it her life's work. She spent decades on it without finding anything, gave up, then saw the answer come back to her in a form she never expected: a family tree.

Contents

• An attic, a box, a notebook
• Thirty years of searching for nothing
• The grandmother who tells legends
• Exile in Galar, then the attack
• What she teaches aboard the airship
• The departure, the return, and the answer
• Diana at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

An attic, a box, a notebook

As a child, Diana is described as mischievous and drawn to the corners nobody keeps an eye on. It's this love of hiding places that one day leads her to the attic of the family home, where an old suitcase that no one has opened in a long time sits forgotten.

The suitcase holds two things. First, a box in which a pendant lies sleeping: she has no way of knowing that a Pokémon is hibernating inside it, in this case Terapagos. Second, a notebook: the memoirs of Lucius, the Ancient Adventurer, who had recorded in it his travels alongside his Pokémon.

The find gives her a purpose before she has even set out. Diana makes it her goal to uncover the truth about Lucius, then sets off on her journey with the pendant around her neck and a Growlithe as her partner. That's the starting point for the whole plot of Horizons.

🐢 The pendant's Pokémon has its own showcase: see the Legendary Pokémon.

Thirty years of searching for nothing

As a young adult, she has already traveled the whole world and racked up one discovery after another. Her Growlithe has become an Arcanine, and her expeditions have earned her lasting connections, including one with a certain Hamber.

The investigation itself, however, comes up empty. No usable trace of Lucius ever surfaces, and about thirty years before the series' present day, Diana finally gives up her search. She doesn't give up the life, though: she simply goes on being an adventurer without chasing the Adventurer anymore.

One lead kept her busy for a long time. Sailors reported a Shiny Lapras that sang to guide ships out of the fog, and she followed those sightings from one continent to the next without ever catching up with it, as it was always too fast. Another friendship from that period, with the excavator Tepen, is how she ended up spending an entire week dangling in midair, courtesy of a wild Ariados.

The grandmother who tells legends

Diana becomes a mother, then a grandmother, without ever staying put. When her daughter Lucca was still small, she would tell her legends, and the one about Lucius came first.

The story then left the family circle. She also told it in detail to her son-in-law Alex, who turned it into a picture book he illustrated himself. The legend becomes an object, and the object gets passed around.

About a year before the series begins, she gives the pendant to her granddaughter Liko, assuring her that it would keep her safe if danger ever came and that one day she would set off on an adventure wearing it around her neck. When the girl hesitates, she adds that only the first step is scary, and that with Pokémon, the rest takes care of itself.

Exile in Galar, then the attack

Two months before the story opens, Hamber reappears and offers to introduce her to someone who could help her with her adventures. Diana quickly realizes that he now belongs to a shady organization determined to get its hands on the pendant.

Her response is twofold, and methodical. With Lucca, she enlists Friede — a former student of her daughter's — and the Rising Volt Tacklers to protect Liko; then she herself withdraws to an old castle in Galar, whose hidden entrance lies near Hammerlocke, to slow down her pursuers.

When Liko, Roy and Friede find her, guided by her Squawkabilly, she immediately identifies the pendant's Pokémon: it's the Terapagos Lucius wrote about in his memoirs, the very one that traveled with him. She then tells them about her discovery and her long hunt for proof of Laqua, the paradise the Adventurer had found.

The attack cuts her story short. Her Arcanine, with the Justified Ability, serves as a diversion against Zirc, Onia and Amethio, giving the three guests time to slip away through a secret passage. Then, confronted by Hamber and his Dusknoir, Diana calls out his side's inconsistency: the group was supposed to be an ally of the Adventurer, not his plunderer. She escapes under cover of a diversion, helps the wild Pokémon living on the grounds, then boards the Brave Olivine.

What she teaches aboard the airship

On the airship, she first takes on the role everyone expects of her. When Liko climbs onto the bow to grab Terapagos as it's about to fall, her grandmother leaps onto her Arcanine's back and catches them in midair.

Then she does an archivist's work. By showing Liko the passages in the memoirs where Terapagos appears in another form, the two of them realize that the girl's visions are the Pokémon's memories: finding the Six Heroes, Lucius's six Pokémon, will restore its memory and its powers. Diana gives her blessing and hands over Lucius's ancient belt, the one that held his ancient Poké Balls.

The rest of her time aboard comes down to expertise and curiosity. She exposes a fake text supplied by an antiques dealer, then forces her old friend Tepen to face the man he has become — a looter on the payroll of a Poké Ball manufacturer — which is enough to make him repent. She also suspects there's a Polteageist on board and sets up the experiment that proves it, a Sinistea teacup coming to life before her delighted eyes.

Her most lasting contribution is as a teacher. When the Lapras affair reveals that Lucius's Pokémon would draw attention away while its companions helped themselves to the ships' holds, she forbids Liko to judge wild Pokémon in terms of good and evil, then gives her own definition of the calling: a Trainer is there to build a bridge between Pokémon and the rest of humanity.

The departure, the return, and the answer

The appearance of the Black Rayquaza settles what comes next. After trying to shield Liko from the moves of the Shiny Legendary, Diana tells Friede that she's leaving the crew and divides up the work: the remaining Six Heroes for them, the Explorers' true motives for her.

The farewells are done with care. The crew throws her a surprise party, and grandmother and granddaughter exchange gifts — Diana leaves her adventure journal, Liko gives her a bracelet she made herself — before a discreet drop-off at a port.

Her return comes with a challenge. After sending her Squawkabilly ahead to tell Liko she's coming back, she meets up with everyone in Kitakami, takes note of how Liko's Pokémon have evolved and demands a battle before any explanation. She counters her granddaughter's strategies before yielding to Terastallization, which turns the scene into a progress report.

What she brings back makes up for the defeat. By retracing Lucius's routes, Diana has pieced together the origins of the Explorers and unearthed two names, Rystal and Gibeon; cross-checked with what Liko and Friede know, this points to Gibeon as the group's current leader, set on reaching Laqua for its Laquium. How the man can still be alive after so many years remains unexplained.

The answer comes at the Crystal Pool, and it's a family matter. The lake projects an image of Rystal, who trained Terapagos before anyone else and traveled alongside Lucius, holding an infant she calls Layla: Diana recognizes her own mother's name and realizes whom she descends from. Since Rystal died when Layla was young, Rystal's name had never been spoken in the family, and nothing there pointed to Lucius as an ancestor.

The next day, she leaves. Her investigation into the pendant is closed, since she now knows where she comes from, and she leaves the rest to the Rising Volt Tacklers with a promise to Liko that she'll come running at the slightest need. She sets off again on Arcanine's back, in whatever direction takes her fancy next.

Diana at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Diana in Pokémon Horizons?
  She's an adventurer and Liko's grandmother. She appears from the very first episodes of the Horizons series, and she's the one who gave her granddaughter the pendant at the center of the entire series' plot.
• How did Diana find the Terapagos pendant?
  As a child, while playing in the family attic. An old suitcase there held a box containing the pendant, in which Terapagos was hibernating without her knowledge, along with a notebook that turned out to be Lucius's memoirs.
• Why did Diana give the pendant to Liko?
  About a year before the series begins, she gives it to her, assuring her that it would protect her in case of danger and that she would one day set off on an adventure with it. She then goes into exile in a castle in Galar to draw those who covet it away from her.
• What is the connection between Diana and Lucius?
  She is his granddaughter, something she doesn't know for almost her entire life. The revelation comes from Rystal at the Crystal Pool: Layla, Diana's mother, was the daughter of Rystal and Lucius.
• Which Pokémon travels with Diana?
  An Arcanine with the Justified Ability, which she first had as a Growlithe and which has been with her since her very first journey. It serves as much as her mount as her battle partner.

In short

Diana is the character who makes the plot of Horizons possible without ever being its heroine: she finds the object, fails to explain it, then passes it on to the right person. Her final scene turns the investigation back on herself, since the Ancient Adventurer she had been chasing since childhood turns out to be her own grandfather. She leaves anyway, because curiosity never needed a case to close.