With a hiss of steam from the stack, the train shuddered to a stop in Bedrock City.
"Come on, Ralts. First stop on the road to Champion."
"Ral-lu."
Ralts hopped into the crook of his arm with the ease of long practice, and he carried her down onto the platform with the rest of the crowd.
His shoes hit solid granite paving. The smell of cut stone and mineral dust rolled over him. Farther off, tower after tower rose against the sky, every one of them veined and textured like raw rock.
"Pika-pika."
Akiyama turned toward the sound. A Pikachu was scrambling up onto a girl's shoulder while she hauled a suitcase that clearly outweighed her, inching along the platform.
"Let's move," he said, grinning. "Pokémon Center first. We've got to register for the League."
He set off at a jog, Ralts bouncing against his chest.
There was something about it—wide sky, no fences. Fourteen years of tutors and drills and family curriculum, and now the whole thing had just come off like a coat.
I'm here, he cheered silently. World, here I come.
Ralts tipped her head back and studied his face, then tilted it, mystified.
Neither of them noticed the yellow Pokémon watching from a shadowed corner, sizing them up.
"Hoooo... zzz."
It didn't understand what it was seeing.
....
"Welcome to the Pokémon Center."
The glass doors slid open on Nurse Joy's gentle voice.
Some things hold true in every world, Akiyama thought. Familiar and strange all at once.
"Welcome. What can I do for you?"
"Hi. I need to register for the League."
"Oh, that's upstairs—it's self-service. Take the elevator, you'll see the machines right off. Wait." She stopped. "Your Ralts?"
Nurse Joy's eyes fixed on the broken horn, and the warmth drained out of her face. The look she turned on Akiyama was the kind you'd give a man caught doing something ugly, and beneath the counter her hand drifted toward the alarm button.
"She was born that way," he said quickly.
Ralts nodded up at her, then let her head sink, the light going out of her again.
"A Ralts born with a broken horn?" Nurse Joy's hand came back to the counter. She looked the two of them over, boy and Pokémon, and then something clicked. "You're the Miki boy. The young master."
"You know me?" Akiyama blinked.
"Please thank your father for everything he's done for the Joy family." She pressed a hand to her chest, her expression genuinely pained. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry we couldn't help her."
That filled in the picture. At some point his father had gone to the Joys with a checkbook and a question—fix her—and come away with nothing.
They traded a few more pleasantries, and then Akiyama carried Ralts up to the second floor.
The elevator opened onto a row of registration terminals. He picked an empty one.
"Please present your identification."
He shrugged off his pack, dug out his ID card, and laid it on the reader.
"Akiyama. Greenleaf Town. Age fourteen. Requirements met."
"Uploading competitor data."
"Welcome, rookie Trainer."
REGISTRATION COMPLETE flashed across the screen, and a badge case rose out of a slot beside his ID. The case was matte black, the League insignia stamped dead center, with rows of sockets along both wings waiting to be filled.
"Step one to the Championship. Acquired." He held the case in front of Ralts and waved it back and forth.
Her eyes tracked it, up and down.
She knew how this worked. Eight Gym Badges got you into the Silver Crown Conference up on Silver Crown Mountain.
The Seichu region had fourteen Gyms: Poison, Dragon, Steel, Water, Fire, Dark, Grass, Bug, Ground, Rock, Fighting, Flying, Ice, and Normal.
Eight of them were the ones that counted. Bedrock City's Rock Gym was on that list, along with Fighting, Flying, Dark, Bug, Steel, Ice, and Dragon.
Not necessarily the strongest. But unquestionably the most respected.
"Ralts!"
She balled up her small hands, all fire.
Akiyama laughed at the sight and ruffled the top of her head, then slid the badge case and his ID back into his pack.
His eye caught the Miki crest embroidered on the flap, and the last little mystery solved itself. No wonder Nurse Joy had made him in one look.
Downstairs, she was busy with a line of Trainers, so he slipped out without bothering her.
Walking the street with Ralts on one arm, he thumbed through Gym listings on his phone.
Bedrock City Rock Gym — one of the oldest Gyms in the region, unshakable as bedrock itself. Awards the Rock Badge.
"Most of what they send out is Geodude and friends. People call it the baby Gym. A little training and you'll walk right through it."
He turned the screen so she could see the match photos.
Almost every one showed the Gym Leader leading with Geodude.
Ralts' huge eye burned.
She was not going to let Akiyama down. Not ever.
"Ralts!"
"That said—training comes first." He stopped walking and looked up at the multistory department store in front of them.
"Ral?"
He didn't explain. He just headed inside, straight for the training-equipment section, and came to a halt in the middle of the foot traffic in front of a rack of small wooden boards.
"Punch boards."
They were unassuming and not cheap. Two hundred League coins apiece—about what you'd pay for two Poké Balls.
He didn't even blink. He pulled down a bundle of twelve, carried them to the register, and swiped his card.
He hadn't taken the family account card when he walked out. He'd taken his own, the one where he'd been parking allowance money for years.
Not a fortune. But more than enough to keep one Ralts in style.
At the training field in the city park, he set her down on the grass and handed her a board.
"Today we start with Ice Punch. Think back to the instructional machines—remember how it looked—then put it into the board."
His voice was patient. Because of how she'd been born, anything Psychic was out of reach for her; moves like Confusion simply wouldn't come. That left Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, and Ice Punch.
Against a Rock Gym, Ice Punch was the best of the three. So Ice Punch it was.
It wasn't that she lacked knowledge. She knew everything the teaching machines could teach—Miki Pokémon started their education young, and daily sessions on those wildly expensive machines were part of the curriculum. She had the Egg Moves down too.
She just couldn't produce a single one of them.
"Ralts!"
She gripped the board in one hand and clenched the other into a fist.
She thought back to the lessons, to the shape of the move on the screen.
She held it a long time. All she managed was a faint wisp of white mist curling off her knuckles.
Akiyama put his hand near it. Cold, technically.
About as cold as ice cream.
"That's fine. We take it slow. Nobody's rushing." He kept his tone easy.
Ralts nodded, dead serious.
She was going to work. She was going to get strong.
And then she and Akiyama would take the League Championship together.
Right now she was weak. But one day her fist was going to come down on the head of a legendary dragon.
....
Even a Ralts with talent like that doesn't get thrown away?
A broken one, at that.
From the shadows the yellow-skinned Pokémon watched, and thought.
But no matter how sharp its mind was, it had no way to feel what they felt. No way to understand it at all.