Chapter 473: Way Too Damn Competitive!

The explosion was deafening.

Dragapult's Dragon Arrow still packed quite a punch, successfully drawing the attention of other Pokémon.

The long-awaited "Full Salvo" had this fellow rather excited too; it had almost forgotten what a proper Dragon Arrow felt like. Gazing at the smoke-wreathed spot, it felt a twinge of guilt over the sneak attack, but even more so an eager anticipation for another shot.

It was the trainer who told it to launch a sneak attack, so… it should be fine, right?

Dragapult couldn't help turning its head to steal a glance at Baimu, then suddenly noticed that the Dragapult Mesprit siblings hadn't returned.

Logically, once the Dragon Arrow attack was finished, the Dragapult Mesprit acting as the missile should automatically return to the nest.

It whipped its head around.

The smoke not far away happened to clear just then.

It distinctly saw a turquoise honeycomb-patterned spherical barrier flickering out of existence, while two Dragapult Mesprit were being bitten by the left and right small heads of a smugly imperious Hydreigon, struggling frantically to break free.

"Sha-sang—!

It let out a taunting roar, mainly directed at Baimu beside Dragapult.

No martial ethics, pulling off a sneak attack?

Hmph hmph! Muda muda!

Three heads don't grow for nothing—its reaction speed was wicked fast!

"Impressive, impressive." Baimu played along perfectly, applauding Hydreigon and signaling it to release the two Dragapult Mesprit. Ever since that day sparring with Dragapult in the square, he had deliberately trained up the latter's dynamic vision and reaction speed.

So that in the future, when facing Champion Dan Di's Dragapult, it would have a chance to seal off its Dragon Arrow.

Once successfully sealed, it would undoubtedly have an enormous impact on the tide of battle.

"Hiyah!"

"Hiyah!"

The two Dragapult Mesprit, the moment they were freed, swiftly flew back. The younger brother very naturally burrowed back into Kong Li, while the elder sister hesitated briefly before silently burrowing in as well.

This small change made Baimu beam with joy.

The very reason he had suddenly ordered Dragapult to attack was precisely to provoke the elder Dragapult sister, awakening the instinctive yearning within her for supersonic flight.

Goal achieved!

Dragapult was similarly a little delighted, but as for what to do next, it was once again completely clueless and felt lost.

"What are you spacing out for! Get in there and fight!"

Baimu gave it a shove, and only then did the fellow belatedly charge toward Hydreigon, unleashing various moves and getting tangled up in a brawl with it.

Team members attacking each other for sparring practice happened all the time—nothing unusual.

Half a real battle, more or less.

He withdrew his gaze, but unlike Ash, he did not issue commands to both sides' Pokémon at once.

Every trainer had their own battling style and flair. Baimu was accustomed to giving his own Pokémon a certain degree of autonomy, letting them make their own advantageous judgments on the battle situation, so that if he personally couldn't issue commands for some other reason, they wouldn't miss a window of opportunity.

The current mainstream tactical style among trainers was: they call out one word, the Pokémon moves once.

The fundamental reason was that there were just too many dim-witted Pokémon.

For instance, the battle tent Baimu had participated in back in Greenfield Town—despite being autonomous combat, it was total chaos. Many Pokémon didn't even know type matchups, let alone know anything about their opponent's typing, leading to the hilarious spectacle of a Hyper Beam being fired at a Ghost-type.

Ever since witnessing such a scene, the idea of broadening his own Pokémon's knowledge had weighed heavier and heavier on his mind.

So far, what he'd done was passable.

The most outstanding illiterate Young Lady was about to shed her "illiterate" title—truly remarkable.

However.

Learning to read did consume a fair bit of Bounsweet's mental energy. Baimu always worried about a situation like Meowth's—"spending all its potential on learning to read and talk, unable to grow stronger and learn more moves."

But based on the current situation, such worries had not materialized.

Bounsweet had recently learned 【Frenzy Plant】—seemingly triggered to fury by some scene in a TV drama, with nowhere to vent it, so it had to find Aggron and furiously slam its massive jaw into it, thereby learning the move.

Poor big monster took a beating, yet didn't learn a single move.

…Thick-skinned and fleshy, that's how it is.

"Bounsweet!"

Baimu called out toward the distance and walked over.

He was currently in the area Champion Dawu's home had specially set aside for raising Pokémon. Like that hundred-square-meter room, it was very spacious, and was even divided into several zones to prevent Pokémon from crowding each other and getting in the way.

At this moment, Bounsweet was practicing doubles coordination with Blissey, as well as dazzling performances, kept very busy.

He said directly: "This time I'm planning to let you Mega Evolve onto the field!"

Four or five days of磨合 time—not asking for complete mastery, but holding out for ten minutes should be no problem. And ten minutes was enough for him to secure a definite result.

"Chido? Chido!"

Bounsweet's eyes lit up. It had assumed that after fighting the Mauvile Gym last time, it wouldn't get a chance to appear this time—yet unexpectedly it had just been hand-picked?

Wait.

After this Greenfield Gym battle, would the Mi Ke Li Cup have nothing to do with it anymore?

Bounsweet clearly remembered this special Contest that the trainer frequently mentioned, and its adorably big eyes couldn't help narrowing.

Hmm…

Alright then.

The trainer had said the Mi Ke Li Cup was Milotic's home turf—it couldn't exactly steal someone else's spotlight, could it?

Being the star of a grand dazzling celebration was good enough.

It happily switched into its Mega Stone ornament, carefully tucking the Soothe Bell away. It had gotten used to wearing that thing after all—whenever it wasn't in a situation requiring Mega Evolution, it would always switch it back on.

The jingling was quite pleasant to the ear.

"Let's begin." Baimu took out the Key Stone. There was no shortcut to mastering Mega Evolution—one could only slowly grow accustomed to it. Aggron had walked precisely this road.

To be safe, he also called over Porygon2, which he had been practicing to sharpen its edges.

Together with Blissey, they served as a shield against a rampaging Mega Mawile.

Besides, Porygon2 was a Pokémon he had already decided to field in the Littleroot Gym battle — after all, double battles gave Trick Room more room to work, and as a base low-speed Pokémon, Mega Mawile would need a Trick Room if it didn't want to rely on burst power all the time.

"Mega Evolve!"

Accompanied by crackling sounds, the brilliant light of evolution flared up.

Ten minutes later.

Slightly out of breath, All Baimu found the shiny Milotic by the stream.

It was trading moves with Luvdisc to practice Mirror Coat — unlike in the games, this thing wasn't a guaranteed-hit counter, and if you couldn't take the hit or failed to aim properly, the reflected typed-energy attack would easily miss.

So training accuracy was very necessary.

On the other hand, exchanging special moves with each other also helped these two Pokémon train their Special Defense, which likewise had an effect on leveling up.

Although the gains were rather slow, didn't many a mickle make a muckle?

"Hold on, let's practice the Contest routine first." All Baimu raised a hand to call a stop.

Under the sunlight.

The shiny Milotic beside the stream was dazzlingly beautiful — golden scales paired with a kaleidoscopic halo, utterly dreamlike; no wonder it could captivate so many audiences the moment it appeared.

"Milo?"

Milotic lowered its head. Over the past month or so, it had grown from just over eight meters long to nearly nine, and its girth had increased quite a bit too — when it came close, it looked absolutely massive.

Poor Luvdisc, only as big as All Baimu's head, had to spar with it.

"You're the star of the Mi Ke Li Cup — the world's top Coordinators will gather there. We have to plan ahead." All Baimu said quietly.

Entering Milotic in the Mi Ke Li Cup was no different from showing off one's slight skill before an expert; Mi Ke Li's judging standards would surely be quite strict.

In that case, putting on a performance that satisfied both himself and the judges was extremely important.

He didn't want to be eliminated at the first examination.

How important was it to compete on the same stage as Hoenn's Dancing Princess May? Not to mention Dawn and the others.

"Milo~"

Milotic, hearing that it was the star of the Mi Ke Li Cup, immediately got a little excited. Its fan-like tail fin swayed gently, and the water droplets clinging to it shimmered beautifully.

Not far away, Luvdisc watched in silence, very grateful that it had no talent for performing.

Otherwise it would have to practice both battling and performing.

How much time would it have left to sleep?

Sigh, it didn't understand.

It couldn't figure out what Milotic was so excited about — was being stared at by so many people really fun?

But the moment it thought of its own gradually compromising situation, the corners of Luvdisc's mouth instantly drooped. It flipped over, belly-up, and drifted downstream with the current.

Then, barely two meters out, Porygon2 grabbed it back.

"Pory!"

You're on the Littleroot Gym battle roster too!

The toy duck earnestly reminded Luvdisc — but for the latter, it meant yet another overtime shift—

Oh wait, that's not overtime.

Luvdisc tried to count how long it had been since its last Gym battle, and suddenly couldn't quite figure it out. Its sleep cycle was long, so its sense of time was basically nonexistent.

Anyway, it really had been a long time since it had a match.

Pain, such pain.

Luvdisc really wished it could turn into one of those seabed coral reefs.

It glanced back at Milotic, which had already begun practicing its dazzling performance, and the despair in its heart deepened.

But considering that it could eat donuts again tonight, Luvdisc's despair immediately lessened quite a bit, and it felt that a few more might reduce it even further.

"Pory!"

Porygon2's urging cry shattered its brief sweet dream.

Luvdisc trudged after it listlessly.

Of the whole team, what it feared most wasn't the mischievous Hydreigon, wasn't the prideful Mawile, and certainly wasn't Blissey, which always looked after others on its own initiative.

It was Porygon2.

—That thing was way too damn hardworking! It didn't even "sleep"! Sometimes when it woke up in the middle of the night and saw the Trainer's phone lit up, it would go over and find Porygon2 doing god-knows-what.

It just never slept!

A slacker running into a workaholic — like facing a formidable foe!

Luvdisc had once worried its Trainer would make them learn Porygon2's ways, but thankfully the latter was more reasonable and knew that Pokémon had their limits, strictly regulating training time.

Even so, it still feared Porygon2 terribly — seeing this guy work day and night made its scalp... no, its soul go numb.

——

What All Baimu hadn't expected was—

While guiding Milotic in its gorgeous performance, there was suddenly an unexpected gain—

Coil.

This move, which he had consciously had Milotic learn by curling its body, hadn't kept him waiting long before it successfully came into being.

"Very nice."

All Baimu couldn't have been more satisfied. Now he only needed one more Recover, and Milotic could become a complete moveset entity like Mawile.

That is, it only needed to work hard on mastering moves it already had, without having to spare energy to learn new ones.

Moves like Hydro Pump and Rain Dance — nice to have, but not a big deal if it didn't have them.

Properly honing 【Hot Water】 might not necessarily be weaker than Water Pulse in battle.

He stopped while he was ahead and didn't let Milotic keep training. "Take a rest, go rest in the water, I'll come give you a massage in a bit."

Pokémon massages help boost a Pokémon's recovery after training and battle. All Baimu's self-taught technique wasn't great, but it was better than nothing.

"Milo~" Milotic obediently sank itself into the still stream, leaving only half its head exposed.

It looked adorable.

All Baimu looked at it and suddenly felt rather glad it didn't have the Cute Charm ability—otherwise even humans might be turned by it…

That wasn't impossible. According to ancient Sinnoh records, cases of humans marrying Pokémon in primordial times were commonplace, and never limited to humanoid forms.

They really knew how to play!

He secretly marvelled. After all, what kind of hero only typed "my waifu" at Gardevoir online? The real brave ones were those who dared to actually marry them!

And after he'd finished looking at the beautiful one.

All Baimu decided to look at some burly, handsome giant beasts.

"Come out! Steelix!"

"Roooar~"

The Steelix, whose length was trending toward nineteen metres, appeared. Its commanding white-silver body reflected All Baimu's figure on its surface—at a glance one could tell it was absurdly hard.

The fact was exactly so.

Ever since obtaining Brock's exclusive Pokémon food recipe for Steelix and persisting with it for a period, the fellow's physical and special defence had each risen a tier, making it even more durable—almost on par with Aggron.

The pity was that, to date, its Mega Stone had never glowed or grown hot, signifying that the bond with a certain someone hadn't reached the mark.

That was perfectly normal.

Affected by its exaggeratedly huge size, All Baimu had no choice but to have Steelix shuttled back and forth between the Ohra and Hoenn regions. Living, eating, and sleeping together wasn't unheard of, but it was rare.

Therefore, more time had to be spent cultivating intimacy between the two.

"How have things been lately?"

He didn't rush to have Steelix begin training. First he chatted with it for a while—even though they'd met just a few days ago, asking about recent happenings was important.

Picking kids up from kindergarten still required asking what they learned today and how they got along with their classmates.

Raising Pokémon was pretty much the same.

At least All Baimu thought so, and he was better suited to a "parenting"-style raising plan. Although it was a bit easy to blur the concepts of companion and partner, so far the Pokémon didn't seem to reject him too much as their head of the household.

Otherwise, how else would one say the relationship between Pokémon and trainer is subtle? What kind of relationship you want to build depends on what kind of raising method the trainer adopts.

For example, Ash's hot-blooded partner style, Paul's cold coach style, Brock and Jessie's gentle parent style… Musashi's absolute-force big-sister style, and so on.

Breeders basically all leaned toward the gentle parent style.

After all, most of them started raising from the baby and weak stage.

"Roooar~"

Steelix excitedly relayed the many changes in Aggron's territory and Iron Town, and also mentioned something that surprised All Baimu greatly.

"Yamuo is building a subway?"

"Roooar~"

Steelix didn't understand the meaning of the word "subway"—it just described the appearance of that vehicle once more, and stated that it would lead a group of Onix to dig an underground tunnel toward Silibsi City.