Elekid huffed and stuffed the Oran Berry in his hand into his mouth all at once, puffing out both cheeks.
Then he looked up, and seeing that the three of them weren't paying attention to him, he secretly pulled out the other half of the Oran Berry that he'd bitten off.
After all, stuffing an entire Oran Berry into his mouth was truly too much to chew—he couldn't just swallow it whole, could he?
"Want to pull off something big?"
Auron asked Jace with a sly smile.
"Hm? What do you mean? How?"
Jace froze for a moment, then immediately got excited.
"Here's the thing—we've still got over half a month left. If we train hard, we might be able to evolve our Charmeleon into Charizard."
"The whole plan depends on having Charizard. If we can't evolve them into Charizard before school starts, then we don't need to think about the next steps."
Auron leaned close to Jace's ear and spoke quietly.
Although he was speaking quietly, Peter beside them could still hear.
"Master, can I train with you guys?"
"Of course you can."
Auron was noncommittal—it wasn't a big deal. Training together was fine.
After hearing what Auron said, Jace became so excited he could barely contain himself. He jumped up immediately and said, "I'll go reserve a training room at the front desk! Should we start this afternoon?"
"Uh—"
Before Auron could say they'd start tomorrow, Jace had already run off toward the front.
Well, there was no helping it. He'd just have to explain when Jace came back. After all, Charmeleon wasn't with him right now.
Actually, he could just go back home and bring Charmeleon here—he didn't have anything else to do this afternoon anyway.
Soon enough, Jace came running back with a training room key card in hand.
"Alright, so we start right after this?"
"Sure, but I need to go home and get Charmeleon. He's still at home right now. By the way, has your Charmander evolved yet?"
Auron nodded and asked Jace.
Jace also nodded, looking somewhat puzzled as he said, "Yeah, he evolved. It happened suddenly one night, actually. I'm not really sure why."
A vague suspicion formed in Auron's mind, though he wasn't entirely certain yet, so he asked, "Hm? Was it the night before last?"
"Yeah, exactly. How did you know?"
Jace scratched his head. Did I tell him about that? I don't think so.
"Well then, that should be it."
Auron smiled. It matched his guess pretty closely—it was probably because the two Charmander were from the same clutch, so they might have some kind of connection with each other.
"What's the reason?"
Jace asked, somewhat confused. Why did he keep leaving his explanations half-finished?
Auron smiled and explained his theory to Jace, who nodded in agreement that it was indeed possible.
After all, generally speaking, Pokémon laid one egg at a time. Having two eggs in one clutch could be called twins without any issue, and it wouldn't be strange for twins to have a special connection, right?
While the two were talking, Chansey brought out Auron and Peter's Pokémon.
"Thank you!"
Auron smiled and patted Chansey's head, expressing his thanks.
Chansey happily gave Auron a little curtsy, then cheerfully headed back inside.
"Let's go. We need to go back and get Charmeleon first."
"Okay."
The three humans and one Pokémon—with Auron carrying Elekid in his arms—all headed home together.
"Charmeleon, let's go! Time for special training!"
As soon as Auron entered the courtyard, he saw Charmeleon practicing Fire Punch with Electivire.
The Elekid in Auron's arms also got excited when he saw Electivire and jumped down, pouncing toward him.
Electivire happily caught his child and lifted him up in one motion.
"Electivire, take good care of the little one while he plays. I'm taking Charmeleon with me!"
Electivire smiled and nodded at Auron, then placed Elekid on his neck and headed inside to find his old buddy.
"Alright, Charmeleon, we're heading out. I'm taking you for special training so you can evolve into Charizard quickly. That way we can really steal the show!"
"Graow!"
Charmeleon called out happily to Auron, then came to his side.
"Crobat, want to come train too?"
"Croo~"
Crobat quickly flew over and circled above Auron's head.
Seeing Crobat, Peter's eyes widened as he asked, "Uh, Master, is this one of your Pokémon too?"
Auron beckoned to Crobat, who landed beside him. Then he said to Peter, "That's right. This is my starter Pokémon."
Peter was stunned. "Then... what about Corphish?"
"Auron caught Corphish at Trident Beach a few days after the college entrance exams ended. He should have just evolved recently."
Jace poked his head out from behind Crobat and explained to Peter, looking so proud you'd think he was the one who caught it.
Hearing this, Peter's face twitched. Good grief—Master used a Pokémon he'd only caught about a month ago to defeat my Pokémon that I'd had for so long that easily?
If he'd used Crobat, I would have lost even faster! Peter felt somewhat helpless. Master really was something else.
When he'd just seen Crobat flying over, he'd been shocked. After comparing speeds, he realized something.
Master's Crobat seemed even faster than his Drilbur in Sandstorm weather. If his Drilbur faced Crobat, he probably wouldn't even be able to touch her.
Before Peter could finish processing this, he saw that Auron and Jace had already started walking away. He quickly hurried to catch up.
"Master, you almost forgot about me!"
"Don't worry, I know you're not the type to be scatterbrained. See? You caught up, didn't you?"
"Hahaha!"
Auron teased from the side while Jace laughed cooperatively.
For a moment, Peter couldn't quite tell if this was praise or criticism—either way, it didn't sound like anything good.
The three of them joked and laughed all the way to the training room at the Pokémon Battle Center.
"Come out, Charmeleon!"
Auron and Jace simultaneously released their Charmeleon.
The two golden Charmeleon embraced each other the moment they met, jumping around happily.
Peter: !!!
"How is your Charmeleon shiny too?"
He'd thought his master's shiny Charmeleon was already incredibly impressive and rare, but he never expected his senior disciple to have one too. How did this make sense?
"Uh, didn't you just hear your master say it? These two are twins. They're both shiny together—what's the problem?"
Peter fell silent. No problem? This was a huge problem! He'd never heard of twins both being shiny!
Wait, even twins themselves aren't very common, are they? This is even a thing?
"You two want to battle each other? The free-sparring kind?"
Auron looked at the two Charmeleon embracing each other with such good rapport and asked with a smile.