Jun carried Ralts into the room Nurse Joy had arranged for him and immediately understood why beginning Trainers bothered registering with the League.
The room was simple, but private, clean, and stocked with everything a traveler actually needed.
For someone just starting out with very little money, getting this kind of accommodation through Pokémon Centers would make life considerably easier.
More importantly, Marnie’s room was right next door.
Ralts jumped from his arms the moment they entered and immediately began exploring.
She scrambled onto the bed, climbed from there onto the lamp and bookshelf, then somehow ended up balancing proudly on the hanging light fixture as though she’d just conquered a mountain.
Jun dropped his backpack onto a chair and sat on the edge of the bed.
After taking off his jacket, he carefully cut away the old bandages and inspected his right arm.
Both wounds had come from Nickit, but Pokémon-world medicine was apparently every bit as impressive as he’d hoped.
Less than a day after treatment, the injuries had already begun closing properly.
At this rate, another couple of weeks should leave him almost back to normal.
“Ra-ru~” Ralts finally abandoned her expedition and hopped down, rummaging through his bag until she found a fresh roll of bandages.
Jun accepted it and redressed the wound while she wandered over to the window, pressing both hands against the glass and staring outside.
That entertained her for all of thirty seconds.
Soon she was drawing shapes in the frost with one finger.
“Come on,” Jun said once he’d finished.
“Bath time.” He called the hotel he’d originally booked and canceled the room, then took Ralts into the bathroom.
A few minutes later he was sitting on a low stool with a towel around his waist, testing the shower temperature before directing the warm water over her.
At barely forty centimeters tall, Ralts didn’t even reach his knee.
“Comfortable?” “Ra-ru.” She covered her eyes with both hands while Jun worked shampoo carefully through her blue hair.
His fingers eventually brushed one of the red horns beside her head, and curiosity got the better of him.
He gave it the lightest squeeze.
Soft.
Almost strangely so.
“Ru-ra!” Ralts immediately slapped his hand away.
“All right, all right.
I won’t touch it.” “Ral.
Ra-ru.” “Yes, I’m washing properly.” Her outrage disappeared quickly enough once he started rinsing the shampoo away.
When Ralts was clean, Jun handed her a towel and turned his back.
“Confusion.” Blue light surrounded the towel, and Ralts floated it behind him to scrub his back while she sat beside the tub playing with the water using her hands.
Jun had to admit that living with Pokémon came with conveniences he’d never appreciated from the games.
Watching the water gave him another idea.
He lifted Ralts onto the edge of the bathtub and pointed toward the surface.
“Can you control that with Confusion?
Not just lift it—try changing its shape.” “Ra?” Ralts stared at the water, then narrowed her eyes in concentration.
A blue glow spread across the bath as a large mass of water slowly rose into the air.
For about two seconds.
Her concentration slipped, the psychic glow vanished, and the entire thing collapsed over both of them.
Jun wiped water from his face.
Ralts sat there with wet hair plastered across her cheeks, looking deeply offended by her own failure.
He laughed and patted her head.
“Maybe later.
We’ll stick with the pen for now.” “Ral…” “Tonight you can practice writing ‘Frostleaf.'” That seemed considerably less exciting, but Ralts accepted her fate.
After the bath, she settled comfortably in Jun’s lap while he dried her hair.
She’d found the newborn’s Poké Ball in the meantime and was turning it over curiously in both hands.
Apparently she had already decided her Premier Ball was prettier.
Her thumb accidentally pressed the release.
Light flashed across the bed, and the newborn appeared curled on her side.
She was still asleep.
Quiet breaths escaped beneath the oversized skull covering her head, while one hand remained tightly wrapped around the bone club with the green ribbon tied to it.
Jun switched off the hair dryer and finished drying Ralts with a towel instead, keeping the room quiet.
“Ra…?” Ralts looked up at him, then toward the sleeping Pokémon.
Jun understood the question.
Seeing her properly under normal light made yesterday’s transformation even stranger.
She hadn’t completely become a Cubone.
Much of her body still resembled a young Kangaskhan: pale blue scales, dark round eyes, a short tail, and the same overall proportions she’d had immediately after hatching.
With the skull and bone club, she almost looked like a baby Kangaskhan dressed to resemble one.
The resemblance between Kangaskhan and Cubone had always fueled theories even back in Jun’s old world.
After what he’d witnessed yesterday, those old discussions suddenly felt a lot less ridiculous.
Maybe something like Frostleaf had happened before, generations ago.
Maybe Cubone and Kangaskhan shared some distant connection.
Maybe this newborn represented some ancient state between the two.
Jun caught himself and shook his head.
He wasn’t a Pokémon Professor, and speculation wasn’t going to help her.
There was already enough that he knew for certain.
Her typing had changed.
A normal Kangaskhan was Normal-type.
Nurse Joy’s examination, however, had identified the newborn as Ground/Dragon.
That alone was extraordinary.
Jun knew how formidable that combination could be, but right now its strengths and weaknesses mattered far less than the fact that nobody had any idea why she possessed it in the first place.
The Ground typing at least felt vaguely compatible with her Cubone-like transformation.
Dragon was another matter entirely.
Jun looked at the sleeping newborn for a few seconds, then gave up trying to solve a biological mystery from the edge of a Pokémon Center bed.
Her moves would be more useful to investigate eventually.
So would whether she could evolve at all.
Neither question needed an answer tonight.
Newborn Pokémon went through a growth period before they were ready for serious training, and after everything she’d endured before even taking her first proper steps, Jun wasn’t about to rush her into battle just because her typing was unusual.
He pinched Ralts’s cheek.
“Looks like you’ll have to protect both of us for a while.” “Ra-ru!” Ralts leaned over and gently touched one finger against the newborn’s tiny hand.
She immediately pulled it back again, almost as though she’d startled herself, then looked up at Jun and puffed out her chest.
Jun got the message.
She could handle it.
The declaration lost some of its force when Ralts yawned halfway through it.
A few seconds later she curled into Jun’s lap, found a comfortable position, and closed her eyes.
She’d fought several matches, helped with an emergency delivery, and spent most of the day running around Frostleaf Town.
She was exhausted.
Jun looked at the notebook he’d planned to use for their writing practice and quietly put it away.
“Tomorrow.” He adjusted both Pokémon so neither would be uncomfortable, then lay down with Ralts tucked against him and the newborn sleeping safely nearby.
Sleep came quickly.
That night, fragments of the previous Jun’s memories surfaced in his dreams—the endless small jobs he’d taken, the money he’d saved bit by bit, and the stubborn determination to someday have a Pokémon of his own.
The irony would’ve been funny if it weren’t so expensive.
Jun finally had not one, but two Pokémon depending on him, and somehow money had become an even bigger problem than before.
Raising Ralts properly had already stretched his budget.
Adding a newborn with completely unknown needs—and Marnie’s monthly fee on top of that—meant he was going to need reliable income very soon.
Maybe battle clubs hired Trainers as sparring partners.
There had to be something.
Half asleep, Jun shifted under the blanket and muttered into his pillow.
“Fifty thousand…
just because you grew up around a Gym…
One day, Marnie…
one day I’m going to…” Whatever threat his sleeping brain had been preparing never made it out…
The next morning, Jun looked at Marnie and spoke with absolute seriousness.
“You know, if you ever became an idol, I think half the sponsors on Leon’s cape would fight over who got to put their logo on your clothes.” Marnie stared at him.
[End of chapter]