Frostleaf Town was a welcome change after several days in Dappled Grove.
The streets had the same old-fashioned brickwork and narrow storefronts Jun associated with Galar, but Pokémon were everywhere, woven so naturally into everyday life that he found himself slowing down just to watch.
Outside an ice cream shop, a young man held up a spoonful for his Beedrill.
“Come on, you’ll like it.
Nice and cold.” Beedrill took the bite, froze for half a second, then buzzed furiously around its laughing Trainer while he nearly doubled over.
A Hoothoot slept atop a streetlamp with snow piling on its feathers.
Two women chatted nearby while their Yamper groomed each other at their feet, occasionally bumping cheeks with little sparks of electricity.
Across the street, a group of girls had taken over a café table, alternating between pictures of their cake, themselves, and the Wooper and Budew dressed up in their laps.
After the forest, the whole town felt strangely peaceful.
Jun breathed out, watching the white mist fade in front of him, and realized how much he’d missed being around people.
The familiar chime of a Pokémon Center greeted him a few minutes later, along with a wave of warm air as the doors slid shut behind him.
“Could you give my Pokémon a checkup?” Ralts hadn’t suffered any obvious injuries, but she’d spent most of her life in the wild, and the last few days had hardly been gentle.
Jun would rather find out about a problem now than after it became serious.
Nurse Joy accepted the white Premier Ball and handed it to the male Indeedee beside her, who carried it toward the examination rooms.
“League Card, please.” “I don’t have one.” Jun pulled out his wallet instead.
“I’m not a registered Trainer yet.
How much?” In Galar, League-registered Trainers had access to benefits Jun currently lacked, including free Pokémon Center services and eligibility for the Gym Challenge and Champion Cup.
Getting registered wasn’t impossible, but the routes available to him were all inconvenient: sponsorship from an established League Trainer, some form of recognized contribution to the League, or simply paying the twenty-thousand-Pokédollar registration fee.
At the moment, Jun had none of those.
“The fee is one thousand five hundred Pokédollars.” Nurse Joy said.
Jun paid without arguing.
With only thirty-five hundred left afterward, it hurt, but Ralts’s health came first.
He had barely turned away from the counter when Nurse Joy called him back.
By the time Jun faced her again, she’d already produced a small medical kit and was looking at the bandages around his arm.
“You don’t need to bother.
It’s just a bite, and I already—” “Sit.” Jun looked at her, then at the medical kit.
He sat.
“This is a Pokémon Center, not a Pokémon-only Center.” Nurse Joy pulled a chair over and began cutting through the stained bandage.
“And whoever wrapped this did a terrible job.” “That would be me.” “I guessed.” Once the wound was exposed, her expression tightened.
The bite itself wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been thanks to Jun’s winter clothing, but the cleaning and bandaging he’d done in the forest had been rough at best.
“You Trainers do this constantly,” she said while disinfecting it properly.
“You’ll spend every last Pokédollar making sure your Pokémon are healthy and then walk around with an infected wound because apparently you don’t count.” Jun had never seen Nurse Joy like this in the games or anime.
There she’d always been part of the scenery: a familiar face behind a counter, ready with the same smile and the same service.
This Nurse Joy was a woman who had apparently decided he was an idiot within five minutes of meeting him.
Jun smiled.
“Thanks.” She gave him an unimpressed look but stopped lecturing.
“How much is this going to cost me?” “The fee also cover this treatment.” Jun suspected from her tone that it absolutely wasn’t.
As she replaced the bandage, Nurse Joy casually mentioned something that immediately caught his attention.
“Frostleaf Festival starts tomorrow.
There’s a Pokémon tournament as part of it.
Mostly beginners, since it’s meant to be fun more than anything serious, but the prizes aren’t bad.” Jun straightened slightly.
“How not bad?” That earned him a knowing glance.
“First place gets a hundred thousand Pokédollars.
Second gets fifty thousand, third gets ten.
The winning team also receives a Pokémon Egg.” She gestured for him to raise his arm so she could finish wrapping it.
“You don’t need to be League-registered to enter.” Jun obediently lifted his arm.
Apparently Nurse Joy had noticed the state of his wallet without needing him to explain it.
“What exactly is the Frostleaf Festival?” “The Kangaskhan migration passes near town every winter,” she explained as she packed away the medical supplies.
“Some of them continue south until spring, others stay there permanently.
Frostleaf started holding a festival around the time they passed through, sharing part of the year’s harvest with them.” The Kangaskhan brought things too—Berries, stones, little curiosities, whatever they’d collected during their migration.
Over time, receiving a gift from one became a local sign of good luck, and what had started as a simple seasonal tradition grew into the Frostleaf Festival.
Jun hadn’t expected to hear about wild Kangaskhan traveling through mainland Galar, but that was another reminder that this world wasn’t restricted to the encounter tables he remembered from the games.
Pokémon moved.
People moved them.
Populations changed.
A soft chime interrupted them as Indeedee returned with Ralts’s Premier Ball.
Jun accepted it with a relieved smile and lightly rubbed the small horn on Indeedee’s head.
“Thanks.” Indeedee closed its eyes contentedly.
“If you’re interested in the tournament,” Nurse Joy added, “you should probably find a partner today.” Jun paused.
“Partner?” She smiled.
“It’s a Multi Battle.
Two Trainers per team.” That complicated things.
Before Jun could ask anything else, a bandaged Marowak poked its head out of the medical room.
Nurse Joy spotted it immediately.
“You are supposed to be resting!” She gave Jun a quick apologetic bow and hurried over, catching Marowak before it could escape farther into the lobby.
Jun left the Pokémon Center with considerably better bandages, considerably less money, and a new problem.
He eventually found himself sitting on a bench in a nearby park, one hand stretched out to catch the occasional snowflake while he considered his options.
Entering the tournament was obvious.
Even third place would solve his immediate money problem, and first place would completely change what he could afford for Ralts.
Finding a teammate was less obvious.
Jun didn’t know a single Trainer in Frostleaf.
Maybe he could show up tomorrow and find someone else who’d failed to form a team.
It wouldn’t be ideal, but as long as they didn’t get in each other’s way, two competent Trainers could probably make something work.
He sighed.
“A Multi Battle, huh…” “A Multi Battle, huh…” The second voice came from directly behind him.
Jun turned at the same moment as the other person, both apparently surprised to hear their own thought echoed back.
On the bench behind his sat a girl around fourteen or fifteen, her dark hair tied into short twin-tails.
A black jacket covered a pink dress, with a dark scarf wrapped around her neck, and pale green eyes regarded Jun with an expression that was calm enough to border on aloof.
A small Pokémon rested comfortably in her arms.
Its round body was divided between dark brown and yellow fur, with pink electric sacs on its cheeks.
Morpeko tilted its head at him.
Jun looked at the girl, then at Morpeko.
Finding a teammate might have just become considerably easier.
Jun’s Pokémon Research Notes Team Yell.
Loud clothes, ridiculous hair, and exactly the sort of crowd most sensible people would cross the street to avoid.
Then again, in Galar, who wasn’t the leader of Team Yell?
[End of chapter]