“Show them your charm, Snivy!”
“Sni~”
Aiden recalled Golurk and sent Snivy out as the final member of his lineup.
Compared with Snivy’s overwhelming elegance, Eelektrik was…
Aiden took one look at the opposing Pokémon and immediately reached a conclusion.
“Heh.
We already won.”
After evolving from Tynamo, Eelektrik had somehow managed to lose practically everything cute about its previous form.
Its body resembled a long, dark blue eel, while its mouth was an enormous circular suction cup lined with four visible teeth.
From a distance, those thick red lips looked suspiciously like someone had attached a toilet plunger to its face.
At least Eelektross eventually evolved into something with the intimidating appeal of a proper monster.
Eelektrik, unfortunately, was stuck right in the middle of its awkward phase.
Even Elesa’s fans seemed to fall noticeably quieter.
Still, appearances aside, Eelektrik had an excellent defensive combination.
As a pure Electric-type with Levitate, its evolutionary line was famously described by fans as having no weaknesses.
Of course, that was mostly something Eelektross fans liked to brag about.
Plenty of people disagreed.
After all, this was the real world rather than a turn-based game.
If someone physically pinned an Eelektrik to the ground and unleashed Earthquake directly beneath it, was Levitate really going to make the attack magically do nothing?
True immunity didn’t work quite that cleanly in reality.
How did a Psychic-type attack a Dark-type?
Easy.
Use psychic power to rip up the floor and smash them with it.
At the moment, Aiden already considered Snivy the unquestioned winner in both looks and popularity.
Judging by the way Eelektrik had been staring at her ever since she appeared, even a Pokémon from an entirely different Egg Group seemed captivated.
But this was still a Gym battle, so Aiden quickly returned his attention to the match and issued the first command.
“Snivy, use Attract!”
“Sni~”
Snivy planted one hand on her hip and gave Eelektrik an elegant little blink.
Pink hearts immediately appeared around its body.
Eelektrik wobbled in midair.
Its expression softened almost instantly.
It was completely infatuated.
“Eelektrik!”
Elesa frowned.
There wasn’t much she could do while her Pokémon was entranced beyond trying to snap it out of the condition with her voice.
Aiden had no intention of wasting the opening.
The moment he confirmed that Attract had worked, he pressed the advantage.
“Leech Seed!”
Snivy raised one small hand.
Several glowing seeds formed above her palm, and with a graceful flick of her arm, they shot forward at high speed.
With the level gap between Snivy and Eelektrik, rushing for a quick knockout wasn’t Aiden’s priority.
What he needed first was to stack as many disadvantages onto Eelektrik as possible and gradually tilt the battle in Snivy’s favor.
And in its infatuated state, Eelektrik could barely even hear its Trainer, much less dodge an incoming attack.
The moment the seeds struck its body, they immediately took root.
Vines burst outward and began winding around Eelektrik, greedily draining away its energy.
Elesa’s brows drew together.
“Eelektrik, wake up!”
“Eeel~”
Elesa continued calling to it.
The strange, drawn-out sound Eelektrik made in response left Aiden genuinely uncertain whether it was answering its Trainer or auditioning for some extremely questionable kind of voice acting.
Either way, there was an opening.
And when an opponent was already down, Aiden had never believed in politely waiting for them to stand back up.
“Magical Leaf!”
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
A swarm of glowing leaves curved through the air toward Eelektrik.
“Eeel~”
The attack landed.
Stimulated by the pain, Eelektrik let out another strangely breathy cry.
The faint electronic quality in its voice gave Aiden an inexplicable sense that something about this situation had gone very wrong.
He narrowed his eyes.
Then he noticed the suspicious blush spreading across Eelektrik’s face.
Aiden fell silent.
“Wait…
you’re not seriously…”
For perhaps the first time since arriving in Nimbasa City, even Aiden Cross—already infamous for having almost no bottom line whatsoever—didn’t know what to say.
Elesa was doing even worse.
As one of Nimbasa City’s greatest celebrities, the Shining Beauty could only stare at her Eelektrik as Leech Seed continued draining its energy and it wriggled around in midair while making those increasingly questionable “Eeel~ Eeel~” sounds.
Her expression became indescribable.
Never in her life had she suspected that her Eelektrik had this kind of preference.
Admittedly, this particular Eelektrik wasn’t one of her main partners.
It was a Pokémon she had trained specifically for Gym challenges, so naturally she hadn’t spent as much time with it as she had with her ace Eelektross.
Still…
“It’s always seemed completely normal before…”
Standing beneath the spotlights, Elesa suddenly felt that the familiar attention of the audience was becoming painfully intense.
The hot-blooded Gym battle had somehow taken a very strange turn.
Snivy actually backed away two steps and stared at Eelektrik with completely undisguised disgust.
The silence finally seemed to make Eelektrik realize that something was wrong.
It snapped out of its infatuation.
The moment its eyes cleared, the first thing it saw was Snivy staring at it as though she had just discovered something deeply unpleasant stuck to the bottom of her foot.
“Eeel~~”
Eelektrik shivered.
That expression had apparently done something for it too.
But then it finally registered the atmosphere.
Confused, Eelektrik turned toward Elesa and saw the complicated expression on its Trainer’s face.
Then it looked toward the stands.
Everyone was staring at it in exactly the same awkward silence.
At that moment, Eelektrik understood.
Its secret little preference had been exposed.
It imagined what all those silent humans were probably thinking.
“Eeel~”
Another shiver ran through it.
Apparently, that thought did something for it too.
Aiden: “…”
Elesa: “…”
Snivy: “…”
The audience: “…”
For several long seconds, nobody—including Aiden—dared to look directly at Elesa.
They were afraid they might discover something they absolutely did not want to know.
After all, there was a popular saying in the Pokémon world:
If you wanted to know what kind of person a Trainer was, look at their Pokémon.
Originally, that saying simply meant that a Pokémon’s physical condition and general well-being reflected the care it received.
If a Pokémon looked healthy, confident, and well-adjusted, its Trainer was probably doing a good job.
But after circulating online for long enough, the meaning had mutated.
Now people sometimes claimed that a Pokémon’s personality directly reflected its Trainer’s personality.
It was basically the Pokémon-world equivalent of trying to determine someone’s entire character from their zodiac sign.
There was no real science behind it.
Unfortunately, plenty of people believed it anyway.
And Elesa, who spent more than enough time online, was very familiar with the theory.
As a responsible Gym Leader, she knew perfectly well that it was nonsense.
Every Pokémon had its own individual personality and preferences.
Even a species known for being gentle could produce an absolute menace, while a species famous for intelligence could occasionally produce a complete airhead.
Still…
Elesa could already imagine what the internet would look like after this battle.
Worse, she could practically see her close friend Shauntal—the Elite Four member who was hopelessly obsessed with writing—abandoning whatever work she was supposed to be doing and hounding Elesa for every possible detail.
‘Maybe I should…’
Elesa glanced toward Aiden.
For a moment, she seriously considered asking him to cut this entire section from his video.
Then she noticed all the fans in the stands holding up their phones.
There was no putting this back in the bottle.
And when she looked at Eelektrik again, she found it watching her with a mixture of guilt and anxiety.
Elesa stared at it for a few seconds.
Then she suddenly laughed.
“Honestly…”
Her expression softened.
“I guess I still have some growing to do as a Trainer if I never even noticed this side of one of my own Pokémon.”
Thinking back over the years since becoming Nimbasa’s Gym Leader, Elesa found herself seriously considering whether she should temporarily cut back on her modeling work and spend more time getting to know the Pokémon she kept in the Gym’s training facilities.
That, however, was something to think about later.
For now, she still had a battle to finish.
“Eelektrik.”
Elesa stepped forward beneath the lights and extended her right hand with a brilliant smile.
“Will you keep shining with me?”
Eelektrik stared at her.
For several seconds, it seemed completely stunned.
After having such an embarrassing secret exposed in front of everyone, it had expected anger, disappointment, or at least awkwardness.
Instead, Elesa was still smiling at it.
Slowly, Eelektrik gave a firm nod.
“Eelektrik!”
Its expression hardened with renewed determination as it turned toward Snivy.
‘Even if you are ridiculously cute, I’m still going to beat you for my Trainer!’
Aiden immediately raised a hand.
“Attract!”
“Eeel~~”