The referee’s voice carried across Frostleaf Stadium as Reed and Hugh recalled their Pokémon.
“Let’s hear it for all four Trainers and a great opening match!” The crowd answered with another wave of cheers.
Ralts’s name rose above most of it, mixed with excited arguments about the Fire Punch she’d used to flatten Klink.
“Did you see that punch?” “And she’s Shiny!” “Jun got ridiculously lucky finding her.” “Lucky?
He read that entire fight better than the other team did.” “Who cares about Jun?
Marnie’s adorable!” That last opinion quickly spread through one section of the stands, where several spectators seemed determined to prove that Team Yell didn’t actually need to be present for Marnie to have an embarrassing cheering section.
Jun listened for a moment before deciding that perhaps everyone in Galar was secretly a member of Team Yell.
“Ra-ru-ru~” Ralts’s voice pulled his attention back to the field.
She floated toward him with an enormous smile, still wobbling slightly whenever she tried to correct her own movement.
Jun caught her against his chest and gave her cheek a gentle squeeze.
“Not bad.” “Ra-ru~” Ralts lifted her chin proudly, then held out one fist.
Jun understood after a second and bumped his knuckles against it.
Ralts immediately grinned, and Jun found himself doing the same.
She pulled her hand back and threw a few quick punches through the air.
Sparks flared around her fist with noticeably more force than before the match, though nowhere near the flames she’d produced while borrowing Bunnelby’s Huge Power.
Jun watched more carefully.
Experiencing that much physical power, even temporarily, had apparently given her a clearer sense of what Fire Punch could become.
The improvement was small, but the fact that she’d already managed to reproduce part of that feeling after a single battle told him something useful.
Ralts might have more talent for physical training than her species suggested.
A few steps away, Marnie was watching them with Morpeko in her arms.
Her eyes lingered on their fist bump before dropping toward her own partner.
“Moru?” Morpeko tilted its head.
Marnie hesitated.
“Should we…” Black electricity suddenly crackled across Morpeko’s body.
Its colors shifted into Hangry Mode, its eyes turned red, and whatever Marnie had been about to suggest was forgotten as Morpeko frantically started stuffing seeds into its mouth.
Marnie stared at it for a moment, then quietly reached into her pocket for the better Pokéblocks she carried.
Apparently the match had burned through Morpeko’s reserves faster than expected.
Once she’d gotten some food into it, Marnie looked toward Jun again.
“Your Ralts is strong.” “Morpeko too.” “We should let them recover properly.
There are still several matches left, and we can only use the Pokémon we registered.” Jun nodded.
With no substitutions available, burning Ralts out early would be a stupid way to lose later.
They left the field together and disappeared back into the competitors’ tunnel while the next pair of teams prepared to enter.
Elsewhere in Frostleaf Town, a television went dark.
A well-dressed middle-aged man sat alone in an elegant room, one hand still holding the remote.
His hair was immaculate, his suit perfectly tailored, and under normal circumstances everything about him suggested someone who rarely needed to raise his voice.
The crumpled sketch in his other hand ruined that impression.
He looked down at Jun’s drawn face, then at the blank television screen where the Shiny Ralts had been broadcast to half the town.
Yesterday, he’d paid a Wishing Star for information that was supposed to give him an advantage.
This morning, Jun had walked into a televised tournament and shown Ralts to everyone.
The man crushed the paper in his fist and threw it hard enough to bounce off the television.
“A Wishing Star for this.” Silence followed until his anger settled enough for him to think properly.
Whoever had brought him the information had sold him something with an expiration date of less than a day.
That didn’t mean Ralts was no longer interesting.
It meant acting now had become considerably riskier.
“Recover the Wishing Star,” he said at last.
“And leave the Ralts alone for the moment.” A voice answered from somewhere out of sight.
“Understood.” The man leaned back and rubbed his temple.
Jun himself wasn’t particularly threatening, but public attention changed the situation.
Leon had a habit of taking an interest in promising young Trainers, and a Shiny Ralts appearing in a televised Galar tournament was exactly the sort of novelty that might catch his eye.
Marnie made things worse.
Nobody in the room knew what relationship she had with Jun yet, and provoking Piers over his younger sister’s traveling companion was an unnecessary risk.
There would be plenty of other people willing to test Jun now that Ralts was public knowledge.
Better to let them do it first.
Not far away, the poacher responsible for that information was standing inside a small accessory shop.
“Here you are.” He accepted a wrapped gift box from the clerk and placed it carefully inside his bag.
The clerk, apparently sensing an opportunity for another sale, reached for a nearby display.
“Would you like one of these Ralts charms too?
They’ve been selling incredibly well today.” The man was already turning away when the words registered.
He stopped.
“What Ralts?” The clerk’s smile faltered when the much larger man turned back toward him.
“The Shiny one from this morning’s tournament.” He pulled out his phone and brought up a clip from the broadcast.
Jun appeared on-screen.
Then Ralts.
The poacher’s face went still.
He’d come to Frostleaf Town.
Worse, he’d entered a televised tournament.
The seller from last night’s underground exchange now had every reason to consider their deal worthless.
A portrait mattered only while Jun’s identity was difficult to find; now anyone with a phone could see his face and his Ralts within minutes.
The Wishing Star inside the poacher’s possession suddenly felt much heavier.
If their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t simply accept losing something that valuable over useless information.
The other side would come looking for it, and the poacher still hadn’t found a buyer.
A single day wasn’t enough to quietly move something as rare and tightly controlled as a Wishing Star.
He could return it.
That would probably end the problem.
But he needed the money.
The clerk shifted uncomfortably behind the counter.
“Sir?” The poacher barely heard him.
Keeping the Wishing Star meant eventually dealing with whoever had traded it away, and judging by the fact that they’d possessed one in the first place, that wasn’t an opponent he wanted.
Jun, on the other hand, was still a rookie.
The choice wasn’t difficult once he reduced it to that.
He took a slow breath, and the uncertainty disappeared from his expression.
He’d survived this long by knowing when to avoid someone stronger and when to take his chances against someone weaker.
If he couldn’t safely profit from the information anymore, he’d have to get his money another way.
By the time Jun and Marnie returned to the field for their next serious match, the tournament had already thinned considerably.
“Ralts, hold it with Confusion!” Blue light wrapped around a Chewtle before it could turn toward Morpeko.
“Thunderbolt!” Electricity crashed into the immobilized Pokémon, racing across its body until it slumped onto the grass.
The referee checked both sides of the field, where Purrloin had already gone down earlier in the exchange, then raised his arm.
“Purrloin and Chewtle are unable to battle!
Jun and Marnie advance to the finals!” Jun finally let himself relax.
This had been their third scheduled round, although only two had required them to fight.
Their second opponents had withdrawn after their Pokémon came out of an earlier match too injured to continue, giving Jun and Marnie an unexpected free pass.
The next team had shown up, but their Pokémon were still carrying fatigue from previous rounds.
Between that and how smoothly Ralts and Morpeko were beginning to work around each other, Jun and Marnie reached the final without taking any meaningful damage.
The tournament really was closer to a festival exhibition than a serious League event.
Most of the Pokémon belonged to inexperienced Trainers and hadn’t evolved yet, but Jun wasn’t about to complain.
Reaching the final guaranteed them second-place prize money even if they lost.
Fifty thousand Pokédollars between two Trainers meant twenty-five thousand each.
For Jun, that was enormous.
League registration alone cost twenty thousand.
Once that was handled, he’d finally have access to Pokémon Center services without bleeding his wallet dry, and he could start taking League work to earn a steadier income.
Whatever remained could go straight back into Ralts—better Pokéblocks first, with enough held aside that he wasn’t left completely broke again.
The plan was already taking shape before they even returned to the waiting room.
Ralts had eaten and was now stretched across Jun’s lap, fast asleep while she recovered from the strain of repeatedly using Confusion.
Morpeko sat nearby with an open bag of Pokémon food between its paws, eating with enough enthusiasm to make it seem as though the last three rounds had been fought entirely for the sake of lunch.
Jun rested one hand lightly against Ralts’s back while Marnie sat across from him.
For the first time all morning, they had a little room to breathe before the final.
A knock came from the door.
Jun and Marnie looked at each other.
Match calls came over the stadium announcement system, and as far as Jun knew, nobody else had any reason to visit their private waiting room.
Neither of them spoke, but the same question was obvious on both their faces.
Who was at the door?
[End of chapter]