The Marine Tube!

  Miles upon miles of perfectly sealed glass, all created by being lowered from the surface to the ocean floor. Standing in the halfway point of the tube meant you could see neither the entrance nor the exit, but its transparent walls meant you could see up and into the ocean all around you.

  Due to its length, most vehicles weren’t allowed in the Marine Tube. Only specialized electric carts and a few other forms of transit were allowed—specifically, the things that had the absolute minimum impact on breathable air. This was a path that connected both Undella Town and Humilau City, a straight line between those two locations that made travel easy and fast despite its enormous length.

  Being trapped in a glass tube so deep underwater was nightmarish for many different reasons, but this entire tunnel was the product of human ingenuity; therefore, it was amazing. Humans and Pokémon had toiled together for years to see it completed, and this miles-long construction served as proof of just what could be achieved when everyone worked together.

  It was inspiring. It was incredible. It was like being in an aquarium—except, everything outside of the tube was not part of an exhibit.

  “Basculin,” I said, naming a green-scaled Pokémon part of a school of fish swimming by. “Alomomola, Frillish, Finneon...”

  The light that came from within the tunnel attracted quite the number of wild Pokémon. The glass was thick and slightly tinted to reduce how much the Marine Tube disturbed its surroundings, but Pokémon were attracted to it anyway—likely, they wanted to watch us just as much as we wanted to watch them.

  “I can’t believe just how many Pokémon are nearby,” I said as Valiant and I walked through this undersea tunnel. For a few seconds, everything turned dark as Wailord passed over and briefly blocked out the sun. “It’s like we’ve been exposed to an entire world that humanity has never touched. An entire planet hidden from us by our need for breathable air.”

  It was no wonder to me why Marlon was so obsessed with the ocean. If I lived in Humilau like him, I might have become obsessed if I could see something like this every day.

  But getting to experience places like the Marine Tube was why I enjoyed traveling so much. This wasn’t something I could ever leave behind.

  I laughed slightly, and at my side, Valiant’s eyes shone in the dim light. Around us, the water currents above our heads caused the sun’s rays to reflect in irregular patterns on the floor.

  But as I watched these swimming Pokémon, keeping an eye on them as Valiant and I trekked through this impossibly long tunnel, my grin slowly faded to be replaced by thoughtful reflection. I could have watched the wild fish Pokémon for hours, but we’d only entered this place the morning after defeating Marlon, and Cynthia’s match was scheduled for midday tomorrow.

  It was not the stress of needing to reach Undella in time that was causing me to think—such a direct route was making crossing that distance easy. No, it was the presence of so many Pokémon that was making me stop and consider. Specifically, seeing them in such great numbers reminded me of my own team, its current state, and how few Pokémon I actually had with me.

  “I’ve been thinking about what Marlon said,” I eventually said to Valiant. “Really, just about his thoughts about the peak potential of our team.”

  Valiant sent me a curious look, but they quickly returned to watching the waves move back and forth far above our heads. They were listening, but they had also lived in a cave for their entire life before they joined me. Honestly, they had likely never considered just what lay at the bottom of the ocean until now.

  “We’re missing something,” I said outright. “Not just a full team, but some kind of trick or technique that’d really let us get the most out of our offense. Like, maybe we want some kind of big, connecting, underlying strategy? Marlon has his Rain Dance, which can make every Water-type more powerful, but what do we have? Raw strength is nice, but as we know from Liepard, raw strength can be trumped by skill.”

  I didn’t want to peak at the Ultra Rank. We needed some kind of better unifying idea, or at least some advantage we could work toward to better secure our wins. I knew that utilizing Electric Terrain could be an option—it tied together Rotom and Valiant. It meant their individual strategies combined well, but what about everyone else?

  I had always kept roles in mind. Attackers, walls, sweepers... every role a Pokémon could specialize in for battle. However, just having a bunch of different roles didn’t make a team on its own. A team needed a victory condition, and right now, it felt like only Valiant was that.

  Basically, we won when we outmatched our opponents, but that wasn’t a strategy that would work once we started to fight trainers that were roughly as powerful as us.

  “My first thought is some kind of trick. Maybe a gimmick,” I mused as we continued to walk. “I could ask Geeta, and she’d send us some Tera Orbs, but...”

  Tera Orbs didn’t make sense for us to use, even as much as they were Paldea’s specialty. They were useful in battle, but Geeta had been growing wary of them. It wasn’t that she disliked them; it was that she was trying to step away from the name so closely tied to their existence.

  Also, they were a hassle. Geeta could theoretically send me new ones daily, but a Tera Orb needed to be recharged at a specialty station once it was used in battle.

  Instead, it worked better if I forwent them, using my team’s strength as “proof” of what a trainer from Paldea could get up to. While I wasn’t technically from Paldea, I had still gotten my start in the region—and I had a really cool Paradox Pokémon with me. Geeta mainly just wanted me to show off my team in a universal way to inspire as many trainers as possible to visit Paldea.

  A terrifying proposition, really. However, she technically didn’t need me to reach the Master Rank, either—just high up in the Ultra Rank—but I wanted to push further than that.

  “Well, I guess all of that is just something to think about,” I said, bringing my arms back into a stretch behind me. “We only just entered the Great Rank, and we still need a fifth team member. We have time. Maybe once we catch a new Pokémon, I can get a better idea of what our best strategy will be, but we need more experience fighting at a high level first, and we really need to push ourselves if we want to prove Marlon wrong.”

  I then grinned again, and almost with a sixth sense, Valiant snapped their head over, their gaze dimming slightly in what I recognized as worry.

  Right now, they were paying more attention than ever to my words, and with a bright smile on my face, I brought up an arm to point at the sky.

  “We’re going to reach the Master Rank by the end of the year, so we need to reach the Ultra Rank as fast as we can!” I all but shouted. “Valiant, let's give ourselves a new goal: we’ll reach the Ultra Rank by the end of the week!”

  Valiant didn’t even wait; they furiously shook their head. They were desperate for me to snap out of it and change my mind.

  Thankfully for them, I just laughed—I was mostly joking.

  I brought my arm back down.

  “No, no. You’re right,” I said, going on to rub my chin in thought. “That’s not nearly enough time to get all of those battles in. A more reasonable goal would be to achieve Ultra Rank by the end of the month. Or by the end of next month? Or maybe our goal should just be to catch a fifth team member by the end of the week.”

  To that, I shrugged, and Valiant stared at me flatly.

  It’d taken at least twice that long just to catch Metang, and I laughed slightly again.

  “Yeah, that’s a little too fast,” I said to them. “But... Ugh. I am worried about time. We have, what, five months left to match actual Champions? That’s... not a lot to work with. We still need to reach the Ultra Rank and catch a fifth team member, both sooner rather than later. But at least for now, our goals are simple: get Metang to win some fights and make sure we’re always getting stronger.

  “Oh!” I said, continuing. “And we still have Cynthia’s Master Rank battle to watch, too.”

  Once we reached Undella Town, we exited the Marine Tube and camped just outside city limits.

  Everything cheap was booked. However, if we wanted to, we could have spent several thousand dollars for a night’s stay in one of its overpriced hotels.

  Yeah, right.

  Camping let me save money, but the problem with doing so was that I didn’t get the timing right. One thing led to another, and I snoozed the alarm on my watch, and then all of a sudden the sun was high above our heads, and I found myself running down the city’s side streets while looking for the right path.

  “Off-limits?!” I shouted. “What, just because it’s a road that goes behind a hotel, we’re not allowed to use it?!”

  I think I hated this place. As much as I loved human invention, Undella Town was a resort town. It was all so profit-driven and far too private.

  High-rises lined the coast, but they only lined the coast. It was like a slice of a major city’s downtown district but without any sense of density. There was a main road that connected all of those buildings, but everything else was simple, sandy, and almost tropical. Small motels with beach themes sat along curved side paths, and plenty of thick, evergreen trees had been purposefully planted to better hide all of the rich people’s villas.

  Undella’s single, major arena wasn’t in town; it was on the complete opposite side to where I had camped. Likely, all of the rich people didn’t want to have to hear the noise of Pokémon battles happening so close to where they slept.

  “Rotom,” I said, all but tearing off my backpack to try to send him into its metallic depths right after almost running straight into a locked gate. “We need you.”

  From where I held up my wrist to look at my watch, he stared at me with big, watering eyes.

  I let out a sigh.

  “Please?” I asked.

  Only once I said that magic word did he dive in, snickering the whole way.

  We weren’t at the arena, but I could see the upper edge of its walls in the distance. We were most of the way there, but I just couldn’t find the right path in this maze of restricted roads.

  In the distance, the audience was already cheering, but that was likely due to a pre-show. Sometimes in events this big, the people in charge would bring in bands or other trainers to keep the audience occupied. Most of those warm-up matches tended to be show battles involving somewhat famous trainers, but given the presence of the World Coronation Series, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this turned out to be a whole-day thing, and the people who owned the arena had somehow scheduled a bunch of Ultra Rank trainers to have ranking battles there today.

  I desperately wanted to see those high-level matches, but I couldn’t.

  Instead, I was stuck out here.

  Not allowed to take all of the obvious roads that I wanted to take.

  “Come on, come on...” I mumbled.

  Quickly, Rotom took to the air in his drone, displaying our surroundings from above. Unfortunately, almost immediately, I realized the major flaw in my plan:

  Thick trees hid the majority of the town’s twisting roads, and his position so high up in the sky barely showed anything but green.

  That, and being so high up meant Rotom wasn’t showing us the signs that denoted which paths were off-limits. Even if we could see the roads from my tablet, we wouldn’t know which ones to take.

  “We’re screwed,” I groaned. “Unless we can catch the last half? Or maybe... is trespassing worth it?”

  Given how frequently tough Pokémon were used as guards, trespassing was not a good idea in the Pokémon world.

  But my team could fight. Except fighting back would only make the crime worse. But Geeta could likely use her influence to stop any punishment. Except I would still have to deal with the cops if they were called, and that would just end up stalling my team for even longer than—

  “Are you looking for the arena?”

  The unfamiliar voice made me jump, and Valiant leaped to attention at my side, immediately drawing their blade and leveling it at the figure standing behind us.

  A thick cloak billowed in the wind, and a man stared directly at where I had crouched to watch Rotom’s feed on my tablet. Dark fabric covered the man’s entire body while also obscuring his head with a massive hood. From an opening, a pair of yellow eyes stared out to lock right onto me.

  I could not see this man’s face. It was obscured by a mask made of metal bands.

  Before now, I had seen suspicious people, but this man was by far the most suspicious man I’d ever seen in my life.

  “...Excuse me?” I said. Valiant did not drop their hostilities.

  Despite the ominous nature of our “guest,” I didn’t expect what happened next:

  Almost as if realizing just how he looked, the man raised his hands and frantically waved them back and forth, almost trying to fight back against that initial, intimidating first impression. It was very clear to me that he was trying his best to show that he meant no harm despite how little of him I could actually see.

  “Ah, ah!” the man shouted quickly. “My apologies! I truly didn’t mean to disturb you—you just looked like you needed help.”

  Even through his slight panic, he spoke cheerfully and with a measure of friendliness in his voice. It didn’t fit his outfit at all. If anything, his appearance combined with how he was acting almost made him seem... goofy?

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  “Sorry, but I mean, you do look pretty disturbing,” I said, returning to my feet and crossing my arms. “What’s with the get-up?”

  If I had to describe him as anything, he almost looked like some kind of wandering drifter. Except, we weren’t in a desert or any form of rugged terrain.

  No, we were in the middle of a highly populated resort city.

  And the weirdest part about this situation was that this guy’s outfit wasn’t even out of place for a Pokémon trainer’s clothes. Even just considering Marlon, that guy’s “official” outfit as a Gym Leader consisted of nothing more than a pair of tight pants.

  “It’s, uh, cold out here?” the man in the cloak offered.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Ah, well, yes. You caught me,” he quickly said instead, scratching at the cheek of his mask. “I don’t want people finding out who I am, so it’s easier to wear a disguise.”

  “So then, who are you, anyway?” I asked.

  “I’ve been going by Cee,” he answered easily enough.

  From the way his eyes curved up behind the slits in his mask, I could tell he was smiling. And as weird as he was dressed, at this point, I couldn’t ignore that he was legitimately trying to be friendly.

  The World Coronation Series drew a lot of strange people.

  “I was searching for a path to the arena, same as you, and I noticed your... drone? Flying above,” the man hurried to explain. “I followed it out of curiosity, and it led me here. Then, I had to approach when I saw that fascinating specimen of a Pokémon of yours.”

  He looked toward Valiant, and I exchanged a look with them. I genuinely couldn’t tell if this guy was a creep or just weird.

  “Specimen?” I repeated, tasting that word. “You know the way you’re speaking about Valiant makes me think you’re some kind of villain.”

  “I am not a villain.”

  “You look and talk like a villain.”

  “But I’m not!”

  “You are.”

  “Everyone has their quirks,” he said, waving me off.

  “See?! You’re not even denying it anymore.”

  The hooded man shook his head, and that was about it for the body language I could get out of him. He then took a step closer—but only a single step closer—and held out a gloved hand.

  “Regardless, can I see your tablet? I'm lost as well, but if you're the one controlling that drone, I might be able to do something to help both of us reach the arena.”

  Checking with Valiant once more, I found that they had nothing to say; they were too busy glaring at this man out of suspicion. But another weird part about this guy was that he was so suspicious that it wrapped all the way around to not being suspicious. After all, anyone trying not to draw attention while dressed like that would only ever fail.

  “...Fine,” I grumbled, handing my tablet over, but as much as I knew this was a dumb idea, I wasn’t being completely stupid about it. When I handed it over, I made sure to walk to the guy’s back, positioning myself so I could look past his arm and see exactly what he’d do on my device’s screen.

  Valiant followed me the whole way, too, and with them being right there, my Pokémon would actually be in range to defend me if something happened. We were not going to take another risk like I had when catching Metang—there was no sense in leaving any room to let a stranger pull off an attack.

  “You must have a strong bond with your Pokémon to move so in sync like that,” the man mused, beginning to look at the video stream I had running. “You exchanged no commands, and it moved as though it already knew your expectations. Do you often communicate silently like that?”

  “We didn’t communicate. Valiant just knew,” I said.

  “So you know each other well, then.”

  “We’ve been through a lot.”

  “I can tell. You must have a very strong team.”

  Despite wearing gloves, the man’s taps registered on my tablet’s screen as he moved through the connected application with ease. He shifted over to look at the drone control program I had installed alongside the camera feed functions, and then he opened a console to type a specific command.

  “Oh, that isn't going to work,” I said, recognizing what he was doing. “I only have one drone up there right now, and it’s being controlled by my Rotom.”

  The man sent me a look through his metal mask and then returned to his attempt at interfacing with my tablet.

  Although I couldn't see his face, he almost seemed... happy to be doing this?

  He went through some settings that I wasn’t even aware of to open the application’s editor. I was about to stop him, but he typed like a madman, and then he handed the tablet back over within only a few seconds.

  Just like that, he was done.

  “What did you do?” I asked, almost glaring at the guy. I could feel Valiant tense behind me.

  However, this man didn’t respond; he just held up a hand.

  From the sky, Rotom came rushing downward within his fan. It was almost suspicious how fast he moved, but yet...

  Rotom was different. Not in his appearance or personality, but in the fluidity with which he controlled his fan. Before us, he started to zip back and forth, and I could hear the glee in his voice.

  “A Rotom possesses machines, but machines do not possess will of their own. They only exist to fulfill a specific function—a specific function that a Rotom modifies,” the man said, suddenly speaking as if in lecture. “In this case, fans such as the one you’ve adjusted are designed to work with Rotom, but they aren’t intended to be changed in such an extreme manner outside of battle. I’ve taken the liberty of using that tablet of yours to tweak some of your signalling functions. Now, the fan should move far more accordingly alongside your Pokémon. I doubt either of you realized just how much it’s been restricting your Rotom’s momentum.”

  In his fan, Rotom’s movement was fluid. Before, he could still move as he wished, but his movement was always closer to him dragging the fan with him instead of the fan itself pushing him around. Now, however, the wind the fan produced seemed to be more directly in line with the direction Rotom chose to travel. It was only a small tweak, but the fan’s blades would spin faster or slower to assist with his momentum.

  Overall, it was only the smallest of changes, but the change seemed as though it had increased his speed and agility tenfold.

  But not really.

  In all honesty, the overall improvement was marginal at best, but it was still enough of an improvement to be noticed.

  “And now,” the man continued, a smile audible in his voice, “your Rotom should have a bit more freedom of movement to maneuver around tight corners.”

  I picked up what he was putting down in no time at all.

  “Rotom!” I shouted. “Don’t stick to the sky—instead, move ahead of us and check as many signs as you can!”

  In an instant, Rotom took off, weaving through the trees and the winding paths with significant ease. Right now, we didn’t need an aerial view; we needed to see exactly which paths we were allowed to take, and Rotom could do that easily by checking the signs.

  “Did you create the fan and camera system your Rotom is using?” the man asked, looking down at the device in my hands to watch the video feed Rotom was sending us.

  “No. I, uh, modify things,” I said quickly. “It’s not inventing or engineering. It’s tinkering. I take what already exists and just... give it a different use?”

  The man hummed as we both watched my tablet. Already, Rotom had stopped moving to stare up at a banner.

  ...I was stupid. A few private properties away, there was a larger, marked road that led directly to the arena.

  “He found a path. This way, Valiant!” After grabbing my pack, I started to run toward the road with my Pokémon behind me, but then I stopped to turn and look at the hooded man. “Are you... going to watch Cynthia’s battle, too... Cee?”

  The man, Cee, nodded and started to walk after me.

  “I will follow you. I’ve been interested in watching a match like this for quite some time.”

  Somehow, we managed to join back up with the rest of the crowds, and I was able to show off the two tickets Geeta had acquired, granting us access to seats for Valiant and me.

  Unfortunately, for this match, seats weren’t by location. They were doled out on a first-come, first-serve basis, with tickets primarily being used to ensure the arena’s capacity didn’t get exceeded.

  Being as late as I was, I had to sit in the far back, way up in the nosebleed seats. Valiant sat next to me, having required a ticket for themself since they were the size of a full human. Seats weren’t an issue for the rest of my team, however. Rotom could watch from on my wrist, and Metang just wasn’t interested. As for Liepard, he didn’t hesitate to release himself. He was a medium-sized Pokémon, and he was able to jump up and lie in my lap.

  He sent me a smug look at that, proud of having been able to avoid all of that frantic running by staying in his Pokéball. I responded with a sigh and a roll of the eyes and started to scratch behind his ear.

  He didn’t need to look so pleased, and he certainly didn’t need to purr.

  “This will be an interesting match.”

  Cee deposited himself into the other free seat next to me.

  “Personally seeing a Champion in battle... this will be a first for me,” he said.

  “Not for me,” I said with a grumble.

  He sent me a glance as if intrigued, but if he was truly curious, he didn’t ask.

  By coming in so late, we only caught the tail end of a match between a pair of Ultra Rank trainers. As I expected, they were part of a warm-up battle for the time before the real show started. Because of that, people were already cheering, and the air itself was electric.

  But it didn’t take long for the pair of trainers to quickly finish their match, shake hands, and then walk off the field. Afterward, two Gothitelle and an Excadrill appeared where the trainers once stood. The pair of Psychic types worked with the digging Pokémon to ensure the packed dirt of the battlefield was in a proper state for the primary match yet to begin.

  “It’s starting,” I whispered.

  I was wrong.

  A somewhat stocky, finely dressed man walked out, and he started to drone on and on about how nice it was here and how thankful he was for everyone who showed up today. He failed to hide his attempt to serve as an advertisement for Undella Town itself.

  “Are you...” Cee looked over to me as the announcer spoke. “Competing in the World Coronation Series?”

  “I am,” I answered carefully, still somewhat uncomfortable with his presence. “And you?”

  A long pause stretched out between us.

  “I am as well,” he eventually admitted.

  His presence started to make a bit more sense after that answer. Below us, the announcer finished his opening statements and invited a certain pair of trainers to walk out onto the field.

  The entire arena practically screamed out of excitement at their entrance, but both of them just politely waved, more than used to this kind of reaction.

  One of the trainers had long, lavender hair that rested on the shoulders of his maroon suit. He adjusted his glasses and brought up a hand to acknowledge all of the cheers. Lucian, a member of Sinnoh’s Elite Four, was not just a specialist with the Psychic type, but he might as well have been the authority given his skill with it in battle.

  Across from him, however, was where everyone’s real attention lay. Cynthia strode forward, her head held high and her pace confident. She maintained a simple smile, one framed by the blonde hair that hung behind her head and stretched down the full length of her back. Her black coat was striking compared to the tan dirt of the field, but more importantly, her coat looked comfortable. She was probably pretty warm with how fluffy its interior was. And she definitely didn’t need to bother with anything like a far-too-suspicious cloak that draped around an entire body.

  Cee was still sitting next to me.

  “Lucian,” Cynthia greeted, nodding to her colleague.

  “Cynthia,” Lucian said, greeting her right back. “Don’t think that I’ll be leaving here without victory under my belt.”

  She laughed, but for a set of opening taunts, both trainers on the field were being far too polite.

  But it made sense—these two were a pair of trainers who had worked together for years, and likely, Lucian had challenged Cynthia many times before in the past. Right now, however, this was not going to be just any battle; this was going to be a battle to see if Lucian was ready to reach the Master Rank.

  “Should we drag this out, or should we get right to it?” came Cynthia’s voice echoing through the arena’s speakers.

  “The sooner the better,” Lucian replied. “I’d rather not wait to have our match.”

  As they took up position in opposite trainer boxes, a referee in a striped shirt moved to the side of the field and began sharing the rules for the match. Just like so many other promotion battles, this was a fight where both sides would select four team members to participate in a double battle.

  Above their heads, a screen flashed on—images of the two trainers appeared beside icons that represented the four remaining members of their teams.

  I leaned forward in my seat, and Liepard hopped out of my lap to better watch the battle. Paying attention, Rotom crackled from within my wristwatch, and the only Pokémon not out right now was Metang.

  He wasn’t interested in watching a battle that he wouldn’t personally be involved in. But really, I knew he just wouldn’t be comfortable being out around so many people at once.

  ...I’d probably show him the official recording later.

  “Begin!” the referee shouted.

  “Lucario, Togekiss,” Cynthia named, sending out her first two Pokémon.

  “Espeon, Bronzong,” Lucian called out, releasing his own pair right after that.

  After a command from Lucian, the field became awash in a Psychic Terrain, and the battle properly began.

  I couldn’t look away.

  Frankly, with what I was witnessing, I was amazed.

  The way Cynthia fought and the ease with which she gave her commands made this fight look more like a dance. Except, where a dance was supposed to be a seamless, partnered act, it was blatantly obvious that she took the lead.

  Her Lucario pinned down the Espeon with its barrage of Aura Spheres, and her Togekiss sent countless blades of wind at Lucian’s Bronzong from above.

  “Lucian is an Ultra-Rank trainer, and she isn’t just defeating him. She’s destroying him,” I mumbled.

  “That’s an apt way of putting it,” Cee said, barely paying attention to me.

  “It’s like... Lucian isn’t even on the same scale as her. Cynthia is completely ridiculous!”

  Her Lucario looked as though it was teleporting with the speeds that it ran at, and its Brick Break completely shattered through any Psychic-type barrier that Lucian’s Pokémon put up. When her Togekiss’s attacks landed, they would strike with such graceful force that the Air Slashes always seemed to cause their target to flinch.

  But even then, Lucian was no slouch—his Pokémon were just as ferocious, too. His Espeon bent reality itself, and his Bronzong put up mazes of screens that hindered Cynthia’s offense.

  Though this was a double battle, the first exchange lasted quite a while. Lucian’s Pokémon were adept at minimizing the damage they took, but Cynthia’s Pokémon were even better at finding the slightest of weaknesses and capitalizing on that.

  When Lucian’s Espeon finally fainted to a combination of an Air Slash and Force Palm, a Mr. Mime came out, but his Bronzong had been injured and didn’t last too long after that. Neither of Cynthia’s Pokémon took that much damage, but they had both spent a lot of energy.

  Though the battle looked so one-sided, that was only because Cynthia had taken Lucian seriously from the beginning. Her Pokémon did not hold back for even a second.

  With this initial set decided in her favor, both sides of the match seemed to enter a silent agreement. The battle shifted to be a single battle. Cynthia recalled her first two Pokémon to release a slug-like monster, and her Gastrodon effortlessly sustained a Psychic attack unleashed by Lucian’s Mr. Mime.

  An exchange of both mud and barriers happened after that, but the matchup was eventually settled when one glob hit a screen, burst right through, and caught the Mr. Mime in the side.

  “And Lucian’s Mr. Mime goes down!” the announcer’s voice shouted, their words just barely audible over the din of the crowd. “Lucian has only one Pokémon left, but Cynthia still has her entire team!”

  Despite the seemingly one-sided nature of the battle so far, Lucian laughed, and Cynthia looked pleased and almost impressed.

  “You understand my plan, don’t you?” Lucian called out.

  “Stall long enough to exhaust my Pokémon so that your ace can win with a clean sweep,” Cynthia replied. “I’ve used that strategy many times before.”

  Despite both trainers having walked onto the field with grace and control, Lucian’s smile looked downright feral, and Cynthia’s eyes burned with excitement.

  “How about we stop taking this so easily?” Cynthia then said. “I know neither of us wants to mess around.”

  Something about that phrase made Lucian smirk, and Cynthia let out a full-body laugh.

  “Yes,” Lucian said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Then, no point in stalling further—we’ll finish this match now,” Cynthia replied, returning her Gastrodon. “Whoever wins this exchange will likely go on to win overall.”

  “That’s the plan,” Lucian said without even an ounce of hesitation.

  Two new Pokémon appeared on the field, and I could see that both trainers had released their ace Pokémon—the strongest Pokémon on their teams. Before Cynthia, a land-based dragon stood on its hind legs, with shark-like fins stabbing out of its arms. Meanwhile, Lucian sent out a yellow, humanoid Pokémon that had a thick mustache long enough to almost reach the floor.

  Both Pokémon took up a stance. A stomp from Cynthia’s Garchomp cracked the field beneath it, and Lucian’s Alakazam shifted how it was standing, moving gracefully under its own telekinetic power.

  As the cameras shifted to show close-ups of both trainers, I could see Cynthia’s eyes sparkle in amusement, and she said something that gave me pause.

  “I don’t get to do this often,” Cynthia spoke, her voice echoing. “It’s nice to be able to demonstrate a trick personally taught to me by a close friend.”

  “...What are they talking about?” I whispered, watching the exchange.

  “She likely had some private lessons with the Guru,” Cee answered, not blinking an eye.

  On the field below, Lucian grabbed a pin on his chest, and Cynthia let a bangle hang out of her sleeve. Both of them revealed a gemstone that shone with every color of the rainbow.

  “No way,” I breathed.

  Just about every person in the arena leaned further in their seats. It was as if the entire world went still as the two trainers brought up the stone they held in their hands.

  “The true power of evolution,” Cee said softly. “The epitome of the bond between trainer and Pokémon.”

  Light emanated from the gems, and that light gathered around the pair of Pokémon on the field. Cynthia’s Garchomp grew in size, its fins becoming true scythes on the ends of its arms. For Lucian’s Alakazam, instead of its telekinesis merely helping with its movement, it became so possessed by psychic potential that telekinesis became the only thing that could move its seated form.

  This transformation was no permanent evolution, but a temporary, ultimate increase in power.

  Cee named it for me.

  “Mega Evolution,” he whispered, voice filled with wonder.

  “We gotta get that,” I mumbled to myself. “This is what we need to move forward.”

  And from there, there was no sense in drawing the battle out further.

  Cynthia won.

  No matter how impressive Lucian's Mega Alakazam was, it didn't have the physical stamina to withstand even just one of a Mega Garchomp's attacks.

  Witnessing what happened actually made me feel better about Metang’s strategy, as Cynthia’s Garchomp willingly took a direct Psychic-type attack to gain the angle needed to faint Lucian’s Pokémon in a single, devastating blow.

  “How... exhilarating,” the hooded man said next to me, leaning back in his seat. “To see a pair of trainers battle it out at the peak of strength, fighting alongside their Pokémon while demonstrating absolute trust. Their use of Mega Evolution proves that a true connection is necessary to draw out a Pokémon’s true power—but does it really? The phenomenon is still possible without a trainer, and there are those out there who battle at the peak without connecting to their Pokémon with their full hearts...”

  He drifted off into mumbles, and I don't know how he had gotten it, but he was somehow holding a camcorder. Given just how thick his cloak was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a bunch of stuff hidden under it, just like the stuff I had hidden under my own coat.

  I didn’t respond to his comments, however. I just cast my gaze back to the field. The battle made it feel as though there was an impossible bridge for my team and me to cross, but there were no truly impossible bridges. Like I had seen with Rotom earlier, we just needed to tackle our goals from another angle.

  We needed more experience. We needed to find new ways to overlevel and overcome.

  ...And I really needed to find a fifth team member sooner rather than later. Metang still needed to have some focused training to catch up, too, and there was no telling how long an eventual new capture would need to match the rest of my team—let alone match other, elite trainers.

  Around us, people were already beginning to leave now that the main event was over, ignoring how two more Ultra Rank trainers were stepping onto the field. I could tell this was going to be a full-day thing, as I had expected, but everyone here had come to watch Cynthia and Lucian specifically.

  “An interesting match,” Cee said, pressing the screen of his camcorder back into the device and slipping it into his cloak. “However, I do have some unfinished business.”

  He turned, yellow eyes briefly flicking to Valiant before settling onto me.

  “I have not yet truly learned about the robotic Pokémon you have with you,” he said.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  Cee’s gaze locked with mine.

  “You asked me earlier if I was competing in the World Coronation Series, and I told you the truth—I am,” Cee said to me. “Currently, I am within the Great Rank, having reached a placement just on the verge of promotion into the Ultra Rank. My progress has been slow; I only challenge trainers that intrigue me. And now, after seeing how close you are to your Pokémon, I wish to witness your team’s strength for myself.”

  I reclined in my seat. I didn’t need to say anything else.

  This guy had clearly prepared a whole speech, so I let him speak.

  “I am using the World Coronation Series to further my research, searching out trainers with the greatest potential,” Cee said. “You, Nicholas, are my next target, and I use my right as a participating trainer to challenge you to battle.”

  I nodded to that. It made sense. At this point, it was pretty clear his appearance had not been random; he had been targeting me from the start.

  After all, a trainer’s profile was public, and he’d slipped up in his challenge.

  I didn’t think he meant to reveal it, but I had never once told Cee my name.

  But my heart was already racing, and my blood was pumping in my chest. After witnessing a battle as dominating as the one we saw below, there was no way I could leave this arena and just stand around.

  After Cee’s challenge, a battle would have been required anyway, but I accepted regardless of that. With everything I’d seen here, I had to face someone no matter what.

  When writing, I tend to rely on a mix of the anime and the games. For “Cee,” however, I’ll be leaning more on a mix of the games and the manga.

  Pokémon (and people) mentioned in this chapter:

  Cynthia

  Nick’s Team:

  Iron Valiant

  enormous thank you to everyone reading! Your support keeps this story going.