The boy's father gave Akiyama a slow once-over, and his eyes stopped on Kirlia's broken horns.
"Fair warning," he said. "This ship wasn't scheduled to stop here—they rerouted last minute. So the fare's higher than usual. And no, there's no discount."
Akiyama turned and looked at the kid.
The look you give a headline that promised one thing and delivered nothing.
The boy stared out the window like he'd suddenly gone deaf, whistling under his breath.
Akiyama pulled out his card anyway. "Run it."
The balance that came up after the charge went through nearly knocked the man out of his chair.
"Here you go—hold on to that ticket. Please, come back anytime." He handed over the card and the paper ticket with a smile that had gotten noticeably warmer.
Akiyama didn't much care what the smile was about. He pocketed everything and left.
Once the door shut, the man went and fetched a bowl of cold noodles and took a long, loud pull at them.
"Never seen a number that long in my life," he said to nobody. "Not once."
Slurp. "Man, that's good."
Outside, there wasn't an Arcanine cart in sight, so Akiyama walked.
The closer he got to the middle of Bedrock City, the thicker the foot traffic got—and the more eyes started tracking him and the Pokémon on his shoulders.
The Miki family's breeding methods had put a lot more of the Gardevoir line into the world than there used to be. It hadn't made them any less of a byword for rare and expensive.
And a Kirlia with broken horns was rarer still.
Akiyama ignored it. Kirlia didn't. She hunched down by degrees until she was practically lying flat against the top of his head, hands buried in his hair.
The training plan was a wash—wrong season, wrong beach, no Staryu.
So he spent what was left of the day back in the park, drilling her moves until she could throw them in her sleep.
......
The next morning, at the Pokémon Center, Akiyama woke to an empty arm and sat straight up.
Kirlia was already awake. She sat cross-legged at the edge of the bed with her eyes closed, running Calm Mind.
"Up early, huh?" He started pulling on his clothes.
"Kirl, kirl!" Her eyes snapped open, and her voice came out fast and bright.
"It's the Gym, isn't it." He dug the Energy Cubes out of his pack.
The first case was already close to half gone. She took a few, shoved them in her mouth almost without tasting them, and that was breakfast—she couldn't have eaten a real meal if he'd made her.
Akiyama laughed, zipped the bag, swung her up onto his shoulders, and walked out.
.....
There was already a line outside the Rock Gym, and the sun had barely cleared the mountains.
Kids everywhere, practically vibrating. Some had a single Poké Ball in hand. Some had their partner in their arms.
Mostly common species. A few starters.
Akiyama, with a Kirlia riding his shoulders, stood out like a heron in a chicken coop.
The wait was long. Eventually his turn came.
Walking through the Gym's front doors as a challenger for the first time did something to him, and he wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
In another life he'd beaten Gyms more times than he could count. Won championships. But that had all been on a screen.
Then Ralts had shown up in front of him—real, jumping, sulking, glowing, deciding on her own that she was going to be strong enough to stand between him and whatever came next.
And now they were walking through this door together. Step one.
"None of this is a game," he said under his breath, and let it out, and looked up at the man standing in the Leader's box.
Dagan already had a head on him, and the raised stone platform under his feet didn't help. All that slab-shouldered muscle looked twice as big from down here.
"Young Trainer. Your name."
"Akiyama. Rookie Trainer, out of Greenleaf Town."
As he said it, Kirlia hopped down off his shoulders.
"So you're the Miki kid." Dagan looked them both over. "And that Ralts of yours actually evolved. I'll be damned."
"I always knew she'd get there," Akiyama said.
"That's how a kid your age ought to sound. Not like your old man." Dagan's mouth flattened. "He's carrying an ambition bigger than he is. One of these days it's going to come down on his head and flatten him."
It came out of nowhere, and he said it dead seriously.
The referee's flag came up, cutting the conversation off, and Dagan pitched a Poké Ball onto the field.
"Let's go, Geodude!"
The Geodude that appeared across from Kirlia looked ready for anything, grinding its fists together hard enough to shed gravel.
"Feels like we're being underestimated," Akiyama said. "Kirlia—Ice Punch!"
"Kirl!"
"Geodude, Rock Throw."
Geodude scooped a chunk of the field off the ground and hurled it.
Akiyama didn't blink. "Break it. Then Shadow Sneak."
Dagan's eyebrows drew together. "Hm?"
In the space of a single beat, Kirlia's ice-wrapped fist shattered the incoming rock, her shadow stretched out long and thin across the arena, and she rose out of it directly behind Geodude.
"Geodude, Bulldoze!"
Geodude jumped and came down hard, and the shock rolling through the ground turned Kirlia's shadow blurry and crooked. That was all it took. Shadow Sneak came apart the same way the thrown rock had.
This wasn't a game. Out here, moves like Protect—Abilities like Sturdy—none of it saved you when the gap in raw quality was wide enough.
The move was broken, but Kirlia was already right on top of Geodude.
"Triple Axel!"
She leapt and drove her heel down.
Geodude howled.
"Geodude, Harden!"
"Again—Triple Axel!"
Both commands landed at almost the same instant.
Kirlia was faster. She always had been.
The second Triple Axel connected before Harden could finish, and the last kick sent Geodude tumbling across the field. It hit the stone and its eyes went to spirals.
The referee's flags swept down and up.
"Kirlia wins!"
Kirlia spun around and ran back to Akiyama with her fist clenched tight, holding it up like she was showing him proof. I did it.
At the same time, only he could see the progress bar in his vision creep down, and the gold particles sinking into her.
Nobody else in the building would ever know it was there.
"Told you. You're the best there is." He crouched and rubbed her forehead.
Dagan recalled Geodude and nodded once. "Not bad. You've raised her well. She's lopsided as hell, though."
He hadn't expected the thing to get through an entire match without so much as a Confusion.
"That's what she worked for," Akiyama said, standing up.
"Won't argue with you." Dagan drew a second ball. "Match continues. Go, Rhyhorn!"
Three feet of armored bulk hit the field, plating throwing back cold flashes under the lights. Rhyhorn scraped a hind leg through the stone and tore a furrow in it.