The Pokémon Egg Marnie had won was pale with swirling brown markings, and warm enough that Jun could feel it through the shell.
If he held it close, he could even make out a faint, steady heartbeat from inside.
It inevitably reminded him of yesterday.
Neither Jun nor Marnie said much on the walk back to the Pokémon Center.
Once there, they left the Egg with Nurse Joy for a proper examination before heading to one of the League-affiliated stores that sold Pokémon food and training supplies.
The shelves were packed with everything from snacks and Berries to specialized Pokéblocks formulated for different kinds of Pokémon.
Jun still had plenty of the general-purpose food bought by his predecessor, enough to keep Ralts fed for roughly another month, but ordinary food wasn’t what he had come for.
If he wanted her training to keep progressing, he needed something better suited to her Psychic/Fairy typing, and the newborn now needed Ground/Dragon supplies of her own.
Marnie already had more than enough for Morpeko.
She was only here because she’d apparently taken the whole bodyguard arrangement seriously enough to follow Jun into a grocery store.
Jun stood in front of the Pokéblock shelves and started calculating.
Three training-focused Pokéblocks per day for Ralts, with normal Pokémon food covering the rest of her meals.
The cheapest blocks were inexpensive, but their effect was barely worth considering.
Anything useful started at the middle grades, and mixed typings like Psychic/Fairy or Ground/Dragon weren’t particularly cheap.
With his new League discount, the ones Jun wanted cost one hundred Pokédollars each.
Five days for Ralts meant fifteen.
Another fifteen for the newborn.
By the time he paid for all thirty, Jun had less than five hundred Pokédollars left.
He stared at the receipt for several seconds before putting it away.
So much for feeling richer after winning a tournament.
The higher-grade Pokéblocks remained safely on the shelves, far beyond anything he could justify buying.
For now, Ralts and the newborn would have to make do with what he could afford.
It also made Jun understand why professional breeders could make such good money.
The previous Jun had experimented with making Pokéblocks himself, but without proper instruction his results had been inconsistent enough that he’d eventually abandoned the idea.
Maybe giving up had been a mistake.
As Jun left the store with Marnie beside him, his thoughts shifted from money to something more uncomfortable.
Morpeko had been with Marnie since she was a child.
Even with Spikemuth’s decline, she had grown up around a League Gym with access to proper training, equipment, and experienced people.
Ralts had none of that history behind her.
So how was Jun supposed to close the gap?
Talent alone wasn’t an answer.
Ralts could be exceptionally gifted and still be competing against Pokémon with years of training behind them.
Jun’s methods might be unusual enough to give her an advantage in some areas, but unusual didn’t automatically mean better.
And Marnie wasn’t even the ceiling.
If Jun eventually wanted to stand against Trainers like Leon, Cynthia, or Steven, the gap became absurd.
Their Pokémon had talent, resources, elite training, and years of experience.
Jun couldn’t magically erase a decade of work because he’d arrived in this world with some useful knowledge.
There was no system waiting to hand him rewards.
No convenient shortcut guaranteed to appear because he was the protagonist of his own life.
The snow crunched beneath his boots as they walked, and Jun became so absorbed in the problem that he barely noticed when Marnie glanced over.
“Something wrong?” Jun looked at her.
Marnie rarely started conversations that weren’t directly necessary, which made the question surprising enough to pull him out of his thoughts.
He hesitated, then decided there was no point pretending.
“How do you catch up?” Marnie waited.
Jun adjusted the shopping bag in his hand.
“Say someone starts later than everyone else.
Worse resources, less training time, less experience.
Even if their Pokémon is talented, the people at the top have talented Pokémon too.
How are they supposed to make up years of difference?” He explained the rest as they walked: his worries about resources, training methods, and the simple reality that experienced Champions hadn’t spent all those years standing still while someone like Jun prepared to challenge them.
Marnie listened without interrupting.
When he finished, her expression remained as calm as ever.
She seemed ready to answer when a small green blur dropped from a nearby tree and flew directly into Jun’s arms.
“Boun~!” Jun blinked.
It was the same Bounsweet he’d befriended near the Pokémon Center.
The little Pokémon had several leaves clutched in its mouth and looked delighted to see him, apparently having remembered its promise to save something good for his next visit.
Jun smiled and gently pinched one of the green leaves on its head.
“You really did bring me more.” Bounsweet proudly deposited the leaves into his hand.
Jun responded by pulling several pieces of Pokémon food from his bag and offering them in exchange.
That immediately created a problem.
Bounsweet stared at the food, then at its leaves.
It didn’t understand why Jun kept giving it so much.
The leaves were already the best thing Bounsweet owned.
As far as it was concerned, sharing them should have been more than enough.
While trying to make sense of this strange human economy, Bounsweet suddenly noticed something else.
It leaned toward Jun’s right arm and sniffed.
The scent of blood still lingered beneath the fresh bandages.
Its expression changed immediately.
“Boun?” Jun barely had time to react before Bounsweet’s calyx began spinning rapidly.
It squeezed its eyes shut in concentration as a sweet, soothing fragrance spread around him.
Aromatherapy.
It wasn’t going to repair a bite wound, but Bounsweet clearly believed Jun was hurt and was determined to help anyway.
Jun watched the little Pokémon strain harder and harder before reaching over and scratching gently along its back.
“That’s enough.” “Boun—!” Bounsweet broke concentration and wriggled away, laughing at the ticklish sensation.
Jun kept teasing it until the move stopped completely.
After exhausting itself playing with him, Bounsweet yawned and floated back toward the tree.
“Boun, boun~!” Jun didn’t understand every sound, but the meaning was obvious enough.
Next time, it would find even better leaves.
He waved as Bounsweet disappeared into the branches.
Marnie had watched the entire exchange without saying anything.
Only once Bounsweet was gone did she return to Jun’s earlier question.
“Did you watch this year’s Lumiose Conference?” Jun turned toward her.
“There was a Greninja there,” Marnie continued.
“Its Trainer didn’t use a Key Stone or a Mega Stone, but Greninja still changed form during battle.
It looked similar to Mega Evolution, but it wasn’t.” Jun knew exactly which Greninja she meant.
Ash-Greninja.
The Bond Phenomenon.
Researchers had spent plenty of time arguing about why it happened and what exactly allowed Ash and Greninja to achieve it.
Marnie didn’t seem particularly interested in the academic debate.
Her gaze briefly shifted toward the tree where Bounsweet had disappeared.
“Whatever caused that transformation, those two had something you and Ralts have too.” Jun said nothing.
Marnie’s pale green eyes returned to him.
“Maybe you should trust your Pokémon a little more.” Jun stood quietly in the falling snow.
He’d spent the entire walk comparing numbers: years of training, money, resources, techniques, advantages he had and advantages he didn’t.
Marnie wasn’t telling him those things didn’t matter.
She was reminding him that they weren’t the whole answer.
Bounsweet’s naturally sweet scent had rubbed off on Jun more strongly than he realized.
For most people it was merely pleasant.
For certain bird Pokémon, it was much more interesting.
Later, Jun returned to the Pokémon Center and took Ralts into the rear training yard.
He had barely begun preparing for their session when a sharp cry cut through the air.
“Krii!” Jun looked up.
A dark shape swept down from above and landed on one of the bare trees at the edge of the yard.
The branch bent beneath its weight, shaking loose a layer of snow.
A Rookidee stood there on one leg.
Its other foot was gripping something.
Jun’s eyes narrowed as he recognized the black-and-red crystalline surface.
A Wishing Star.
Then he looked back at the Rookidee itself.
There was something familiar about it…
[End of chapter]