Chapter 590: A Great Terror!

"Xiaoguang——"

Being girls themselves, Liuqi was especially warm in welcoming Xiaoguang.

"Churu~~"

The Murkrow spread its wings in a friendly gesture toward the Pachirisu, but the latter found it too tall and a bit overbearing, so it puffed out its chest, trying to look strong.

"Pokya!"

A question mark floated across the Murkrow's forehead. "Churu?"

Baimu and Xiaogang's gazes passed over the two chattering girls and went to greet Mi Ke Li, who was strolling over from not far away.

"Mi Ke Li-san!"

"Thank you very much for letting us stay here, Gym Leader Mi Ke Li."

Mi Ke Li smiled gently and replied, "It's nothing, no need to be so polite. Besides, this isn't our first meeting, Xiaogang."

He then looked at Xiaoguang, who hurriedly bowed in greeting beside him. "Xiaoguang, your performance at the festival and your gorgeous battle were both outstanding. I was right to hand you the Mi Ke Li Cup back then."

"Thank you."

The latter was a little flattered.

After all, the man was the only Master among Coordinators, universally recognized as the number one in Gorgeous Contests.

Liuqi listened to their exchange from the side and, when no one was looking, secretly stuck out her tongue at Baimu in a teasing face.

Because she was quite displeased that someone had taken almost a week to return to the Gym.

"Ha…"

Baimu was helpless.

To be honest, once he returned to Oreburgh, he probably wouldn't be able to come to the Glacia Gym again for a long time. This visit was also to properly explain the situation to everyone at the Glacia Gym.

He was truly grateful for their attentive care of him and his Bastiodon over all this time.

Of course he'd definitely drop by when he had free time — that went without saying.

Mi Ke Li, who had been talking with Xiaoguang, looked up at the calm-faced Baimu. His azure phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as he smiled. "Let's go inside, no need to stand out here."

Everyone went in.

From the old butler, who had been waiting a long time, Baimu learned that Adam usually practiced his giant water-ball performance on the open ground behind the Gym.

Why not indoors?

Only because Adam wanted to pair natural sunlight with the water ball to achieve different lighting effects.

"Teacher Adam."

He made his way to the back courtyard and, without approaching carelessly, called out his greeting from afar.

Adam, who had been conducting like an orchestra conductor, lowered his hands and showed a gentle smile. "Back?"

"Mm. I did not let your teachings down."

Baimu nodded and snapped his fingers.

A mismatched Gengar poked its head out of the shadow behind him, reached a claw into its belly, rummaged for a while, and carefully lifted out a gilded grand trophy.

"Kuu~" it let out a smug, eerie grin.

"Thanks."

He took the trophy and, as if presenting it, prepared to say something more.

He hadn't expected Adam to walk straight over, look at the trophy reflecting a metallic halo in the sunlight, and let a flicker of reminiscence cross his eyes.

"I once thought the next person to bring back the championship trophy would be Liuqi, but ever since I met you, I've been thinking Liuqi might have to wait another year."

"Uh."

Baimu glanced behind him — if Liuqi heard that, there was no telling what kind of trouble would break out.

Adam smiled. "Don't be nervous. Liuqi also understands the gap between you and her, so she's always regarded you as her greatest rival. The two of you competing on the same stage and improving each other — that's a very heartening thing."

"…"

"For your future dreams, work hard, and remember to come back and visit when you have time."

Adam seemed to see through the thoughts Baimu was hiding. He gently patted his shoulder. "Mi Ke Li and I will always be watching you. Go forward boldly."

Baimu was silent for a moment, then asked, "Can I leave the trophy here?"

"Of course."

Mi Ke Li's voice came from the other side.

At some unknown point, the current Gym Leader had also arrived at the back courtyard, and said, "Your display case is already set up in the exhibition area of the hall. You can put it in whenever you like."

The display cases in the Glacia Gym's hall held all the honors Adam, Mi Ke Li, and Liuqi had won in the past, for visiting challengers to see.

The fact that a case had been specially added made Mi Ke Li's attitude more than clear.

Baimu even suspected that after this tournament, he could take up the post at any time.

That left him not knowing what to say.

"Champion Dawu said that if you're willing, he can come back from Kalos at any time to convene the Hoenn Champion League." Mi Ke Li stood with one hand on his hip, his face full of a broad smile.

After transporting the legendary giant rock back to Hoenn, Champion Dawu hadn't simply come back with them. Instead, following the clues given by Alain, he had headed off to the Cave of Ice to search for a Mega Stone vein.

The guy couldn't get away for a while, so he had asked the former to help investigate.

Baimu figured that Champion Dawu, the professional miner, would probably dig up a whole pile of Key Stones and Mega Stones, and by then, at the Gym Leader level, those things would be "a dime a dozen."

He picked up Mi Ke Li's thread. "A battle with Champion Dawu-san would be better saved for an even grander event."

An even grander event?

Hearing him say that, Mi Ke Li and Adam couldn't help but exchange a glance. There were really far, far too few tournaments in the world that could rival the Champion League.

The Vanebe City Pokémon World Championships counted as one.

However, the real intent of this exchange between the two was for Mi Ke Li to beat around the bush and ask whether he was confident about winning the tournament. Although the latter had spoken boldly in his acceptance speech, the former could tell he was purely reciting a prepared statement from memory.

And if he wasn't very confident, All Baimu's reply would mostly lean toward something like "let's win the tournament first, then we'll talk."

The facts proved he was bound and determined to win the tournament.

Mi Ke Li was very satisfied.

The few chatted a bit more, and All Baimu went to put the trophy away.

The previous two generations of the Sootopolis Gym stayed in the back courtyard, the giant water sphere behind them refracting the sunlight, listening to the splash-splash of Pokémon diving in and popping back out, silent for a long time.

Suddenly.

Mi Ke Li said, "When I first had ideas about the Hoenn Champion, you weren't like this at all. You were a lot fiercer back then."

Adam glanced at him. "I don't recall when the Sootopolis Gym ever needed reviving."

"But that was my dream!"

"Your dream was playing musical chairs with Champion Dawu? Let All Baimu, this kid, sit in that seat — he'd definitely be more reliable than either of you."

"……"

Mi Ke Li left in a sulk.

Freely swapping the Champion seat between himself and Champion Dawu at Adam's place was a lifelong black mark on the two of them — the kind that can never be washed clean.

Gym main hall.

All Baimu carefully placed the trophy into the cabinet.

"What do you think of this spot?"

He turned to ask the shiny Gengar; the latter gave an affirmative reply, then pulled a camera out of its belly and asked whether he wanted a photo.

All Baimu waved his hand in refusal.

The three display cabinets beside him, nearly full, were too dazzling — he really couldn't bring himself to pose for a photo.

He turned to look at the grey fatty tucking the camera back in and laughed, "Getting more and more skilled at it, huh?"

"Hehehehe~"

The shiny Gengar let out a smug, eerie laugh.

As it grew closer to All Baimu, it resolved to make some contribution to the team so it could blend in faster, so after discussing things with Porygon-II—

"Sha Seng" was born.

Simply put, Gengar made use of its body's ability to hide things, thereby taking the backpack's weight off All Baimu's daily burden.

Everyone praised this ability of its to the skies.

Mawile especially — when it discovered the shiny Gengar's internal space was quite large and stuffing a bag inside was a piece of cake, it immediately realized it could buy a lot more things from now on.

Its attitude toward it became quite affectionate.

The shiny Gengar couldn't help feeling overwhelmed by the favor. According to Porygon-II, the hardest member of this team to win over was Mawile — as long as it could earn Mawile's goodwill, there was nothing to worry about.

What surprised it even more was that Corsola, which Porygon-II had labeled as terminally lazy and which rarely got close to other members, also conveyed goodwill toward it.

Why?

Porygon-II: "……Probably so it can sneak into your belly and slack off."

The shiny Gengar's answer refreshed its understanding of Corsola — and of All Baimu as well.

A trainer who could tolerate Pokémon slacking off without scolding them — truly a man worth entrusting oneself to!

Still, it often felt like someone was watching it from the shadows.

Was it the Dragapult Porygon-II mentioned?

The shiny Gengar vividly remembered that when it was still under Jarvis, the other had whipped it dizzy with a single tail-swing, and by the time it came to its senses, it had already been recalled into its Poké Ball.

Such a powerful companion — it had always wanted to have a chat with the other.

But for some reason Dragapult always avoided it, whether at mealtimes or at night when sleeping.

The shiny Gengar suspected it was being disliked.

So it went to ask Porygon again.

The answer it got was that the other was just like that by nature — even the trainer normally had a hard time catching sight of Dragapult's dragon-shadow, and sometimes had no choice but to talk to "the air," to the point of being taken for a lunatic by other humans.

Shiny Gengar: "!"

The trainer is just too nice, isn't he?

How could anyone stand for that?

The more the shiny Gengar came to understand this team, the more its admiration for All Baimu surged like a river, endless and unbroken.

It was hard to imagine how the latter had walked this far with such a bunch of weird Pokémon.

On willpower alone?

While sighing with emotion, it suddenly realized it might be one of those weird Pokémon too.

After getting the answer from Porygon-II's eerie gaze, the shiny Gengar couldn't help questioning its life, and fully realized how important the position of quartermaster was.

And in essence.

Gengar's ability was evolved for "feeding."

It would turn into a shadow to ambush humans or Pokémon, trap them in the pitch-black space inside its body, and feed on the fear and other emotions they generated to meet its own energy needs.

The urban legends about Gengar stealing people's lives and killing to make companions are all related to this ability.

Those who didn't understand mistakenly thought that pitch-black space was the world after death.

After being locked inside and released, they felt they had narrowly escaped death, and so the widely spread urban-legend Ghost-Pokémon series was born.

Online debunking posts are numerous; those who pay attention are few.

However.

Such a mysterious space, capable of stopping children from crying at night, had been turned into a storeroom by the shiny Gengar.

All Baimu had certainly had the idea long ago, but seeing it so cheerfully volunteering as quartermaster, he could barely keep a straight face either.

Gratitude was a given.

The heaviest burden since the journey began had been the backpack; with both shoulders freed, he felt so light he could stand a Mawile on each side without breaking a sweat.

"Let's go, time to practice."

He rubbed the shiny Gengar's head, and seeing its two ears flop forward with each pass of his hand, he couldn't help but smile in delight.

There were quite a lot of Pokémon in the team, so he had to arrange their appearances appropriately.

He aimed to give every Pokémon enough chances to take part in this battle feast.

——

The days after returning to the Glassylia Gym were utterly uneventful.

Apart from training and battling, what Baimu did every day was cook up delicacies following the recipes he'd secretly learned from the chef before.

His outstanding culinary skills earned the admiration of everyone in the entire gym.

Fortunately.

As his cooking level "leveled up," Pokémon like Boldore and the rest whose levels exceeded seventy finally showed a fairly clear trend of progress.

Could he push for one more wave right before the tournament?

He was looking forward to it.

Since Dawn had finally made it to the Glassylia Gym, she naturally wouldn't miss the chance to seek guidance from Mi Ke Li, and she often gathered with Miss Liuqi to study Contest performances.

But what they did most often was probably serve as experience babies for Baimu alongside Miss Liuqi, sending out their Pokémon to battle his.

As a result, they themselves had grown quite a bit stronger.

The one that improved the most and fastest was Piplup.

That fellow discovered it could stay with Mawile and the shiny Milotic for long stretches, and was so happy it nearly melted, brimming with drive to press forward.

During the day it watched TV dramas with Mawile, and at night it went to the ecology garden to listen to the shiny Milotic sing.

Life was too beautiful.

It was practically walking on air.

Porygon-Z, acting as a secret observer, submitted this intel to Baimu, who said there was no need to mind it.

The happier it feels now, the more painful the parting will be.

Playing both sides, huh? Hmph hmph!

I'm destined to let you taste what the farthest distance in the world is!

Baimu, who seemed to foresee the future scene, felt a little anticipation; truth be told, he'd always thought Piplup was very cute, so whenever he got the chance he'd pick it up and squish it.

How could such a proud little penguin stand that?

It simply didn't dare offend the trainer of its secret crush, so it could only swallow its anger, force a smile, and not dare speak out despite its fury.

Porygon-Z had once secretly tipped it off that currying favor with Baimu would help raise the odds of romantic success, and Piplup was quite convinced by this Pokémon that could play with phones and even read.

Brock, without a doubt, ran to the Pokémon Center every day to assist and curry favor with Nurse Joy.

In his traveling studies, he wouldn't need much longer to become an intern doctor — among everyone, he was the closest to his dream.

He had already completely handed the Oreburgh Gym over to his brother, and would occasionally go back to check on it, bullying challengers and the like.

The days were plain, yet fulfilling.

Under such circumstances.

On the night before the day of departure for Ecruteak City.

Baimu's simulator had once again finished cooling down.

Based on his past speculation, every two blue-talent simulations would be followed by one dual-blue-talent simulation.

It just so happened that White Duck Dancer and Gambler were both single-blue-talent simulations—

A dual-blue-talent simulation guaranteed at least a tournament champion!

He suppressed his excitement, called Blissey over to sit guard on one side, stuffed the bewildered shiny Gengar on the other, and spread out his book to gesture and compare.

The surrounding Pokémon, seeing this scene, knew the trainer was about to start his monthly "fit" again, and one after another kept their distance.

Especially Mawile.

Last time it had truly had enough, and wished it could be as far from Baimu as possible right now.

Hydreigon likewise didn't dare get too close — at times like these the trainer was often "recognizing no kin," as if harboring some great terror!

The shiny Gengar stared blankly as the many Pokémon withdrew; its subconscious told it that something not-so-pleasant was about to happen.

It glanced at Blissey, saw the latter perfectly composed, and felt a little reassured.

At least there was a Pokémon keeping it company.

Then it was fine.