the Newcomer 21: Chapter 21 – Ralts vs.
the Newcomer Rookidee held Jun’s gaze for a moment before tightening its grip on the Wishing Star and tossing it toward him.
The stone spun through the falling snow, leaving a faint trail of color against the white sky.
Jun caught it with both hands.
The surface was hard and uneven, but surprisingly warm, almost like a small hand warmer.
“A Wishing Star…” He looked back up at Rookidee, still trying to understand where it had found something this valuable and why it had brought it to him.
Rookidee answered with a sharp cry.
“Krii!” It spread its wings wide, lifted its head proudly, and fixed its red eyes on Jun with unmistakable fighting spirit.
That part, at least, was easy to understand.
Jun released two Poké Balls.
Ralts appeared beside him in a flash of light, while the newborn materialized a little farther back and immediately looked between Ralts and the bird perched overhead.
“Cuu?” The tension seemed to make her nervous.
She hurried behind Jun’s leg, holding up the oversized skull with one hand while peeking around him.
Jun gently patted the top of it.
“It’s just a battle.
You don’t need to be scared.” The little one didn’t seem to fully understand, but she nodded anyway and raised her bone club to cheer for Ralts.
Jun still had plenty of questions about Rookidee.
The Wishing Star alone made no sense, and giving it away made even less sense.
But its purpose here was obvious.
It wanted another battle with Ralts.
Rookidee glanced once at Jun, then launched itself from the branch.
Snow scattered from its wings as it shot toward Ralts, once again trying to seize the initiative before Jun could set the pace.
Jun frowned slightly.
It was using the same aggressive opening as before.
“Disarming Voice.” Ralts’s cry burst outward, scattering the falling snow, but Rookidee twisted sharply in midair and carved an almost unnatural curve away from the attack.
The instant Ralts finished, it folded its wings against its body as pale air gathered around it and plunged straight back toward her.
Fly.
Jun’s expression sharpened.
Rookidee was noticeably faster than during their first battle, and its reactions had improved just as much.
None of Ralts’s current attacks were reliable enough to simply catch something moving like that.
“Confusion.
Use the snow to cover its approach, then Fire Punch when it gets close.” Blue light spread through the snow around Ralts.
The loose powder lifted and spiraled upward, filling the space between them until both Pokémon disappeared inside a whirling curtain of white.
Rookidee didn’t slow down.
It tore straight through the snowstorm, and two heavy impacts followed almost together.
When the snow settled, Ralts had been driven backward with one arm held close to her body, while Rookidee was already climbing away again.
A blackened patch of ground smoldered beside Ralts where Fire Punch had missed.
Jun immediately understood what had gone wrong.
He’d hoped the snow would interfere with Rookidee’s approach enough to give Ralts a clean counter, but between its Keen Eye, sharp reactions, and months of surviving aerial pursuits, the bird had tracked her far better than he’d expected.
That mistake was his.
At least now he knew.
“Krii!” Rookidee circled above them and called down toward Ralts.
Ralts’s expression changed immediately.
“Ra?” Another cry came from above.
“Krii!” Ralts’s eye twitched.
Jun looked between them.
“Did it just use Taunt?” Apparently not.
The two Pokémon abruptly began arguing.
“Ra-ru!
Ral, ra-ru!” “Krii!
Krii!” Ralts’s voice grew louder with every exchange, and Jun couldn’t remember seeing her this angry except when he’d been injured by Nickit.
The reason, however, was considerably less serious this time.
Rookidee had apparently decided that beating Ralts would prove it deserved to become Jun’s Pokémon.
Worse, it had enough confidence to suggest that once it won, Ralts could start treating it like the senior member of the team.
Ralts found the entire proposal deeply offensive.
Jun was hers.
Well, not hers exactly.
But this stupid bird certainly wasn’t going to fly in out of nowhere, beat her once, and start acting as though it could take her place.
“Krii!” Rookidee answered whatever insult she’d thrown at it with one of its own.
Ralts’s cheeks puffed with anger.
It was bad enough that the bird kept flying around where she couldn’t punch it.
Now it wanted her spot too?
“RA-RU!” Ralts threw both hands forward.
The temperature around the training yard suddenly dropped.
Jun felt it immediately.
Snowflakes hanging in the air began swirling toward Ralts, joined by loose snow torn from the ground.
A cold blue current formed around the mass and swept upward in a broad wave, turning the entire attack into something closer to an airborne avalanche.
Rookidee tried to climb out of its path.
It wasn’t fast enough.
The freezing wind caught it across the wings, covering its feathers with thin crystals of ice and forcing it off its original flight path.
By the time it stabilized, its movements had become visibly slower.
Jun stared at Ralts.
“Icy Wind?” She had never used it before.
The weather, the snow surrounding them, and the frustration of fighting an opponent too fast to catch might have pushed her into discovering a way to solve the problem herself.
Jun didn’t know exactly how Pokémon learned new moves in situations like this, but there was no mistaking what he’d just seen.
More importantly, Rookidee had finally slowed down enough for Ralts to catch.
Jun reacted immediately.
“Confusion, then Fire Punch.” The familiar blue glow wrapped around Rookidee.
Its wings beat hard as it fought the psychic pull, but with ice still clinging to its feathers, it couldn’t generate enough speed to break away.
Ralts slowly dragged it closer while flames gathered around her fist.
She looked extremely pleased with herself.
Rookidee stopped struggling.
The instant it entered striking distance, loose feathers burst around its body and a Substitute appeared in its place.
Ralts’s Fire Punch tore through the decoy and slammed into the ground hard enough to crack the frozen earth beneath it.
Rookidee had already slipped behind her.
It swept in low, its beak beginning to glow as it prepared to strike, but Ralts spun around before it could finish the attack and caught it by the neck with one hand.
“Krii!?” Rookidee went rigid.
How had she reacted that quickly?
Ralts stared at the bird she’d spent half the battle trying to catch, and a very satisfied little smile spread across her face.
Flames began gathering around her free fist.
Jun decided that was enough.
“Ralts.” She looked toward him.
“That’s it.” The flames vanished immediately.
So did the murderous little smile.
Ralts released Rookidee, turned around, and ran through the snow toward Jun as though the previous several seconds had never happened.
She jumped into his arms and looked up at him expectantly, waiting for the praise she clearly believed she had earned.
The newborn raised her bone club enthusiastically beside them.
“Cuu!
Cuu!” She might not have understood much of the battle, but she understood that Ralts had won.
Jun smiled and pinched Ralts’s cheek.
“Good job.” “Ra-ru~” Rookidee remained where she’d released it, staring at her in disbelief.
The terrifying Pokémon that had just been holding it by the neck while preparing another Fire Punch was now cuddled comfortably in Jun’s arms with the most innocent expression imaginable.
Rookidee had no idea how those could possibly be the same Pokémon.
Then again, it was only a bird.
Jun carried the newborn over and crouched beside Rookidee.
He placed several Pokéblocks in the snow in front of it.
“The Pokémon Center is right there.
Eat these, get some energy back, and we’ll have you treated first.
After that, we can figure out what you want to—” “Krii!” Rookidee snapped its head toward the far side of the yard.
The relaxed atmosphere vanished.
Its feathers bristled as a sharp warning cry tore from its throat, and its entire body turned toward whatever it had sensed beyond the wall.
[End of chapter]