Morning light slanted through the scaffolding of the Lavender Gym, turning dust motes to gold. After an hour guiding students and another studying ancient script with Mr. Fuji, Ethan stepped back onto the practice field. A ring of Gym trainees and volunteers gathered fast—word had spread that Cynthia wanted a rematch.
She stood across from him, calm on the surface, fire in her eyes. "Yesterday was luck," she said, jaw tight. "If you dare let Munchlax use Metronome again today, I don't believe it can pull a Legendary move twice."
Ethan met her stare without blinking. "Then let's find out."
Hao, pressed into service as referee, lifted a flag. "Battle… begin!"
"Metronome," Ethan said.
"Ka~!" Munchlax waggled his little fingers, a pearly glow blooming at their tips.
Cynthia's lips thinned. "Garchomp—Dragon Claw!"
The land shark sprang forward, claws shining—then the world lurched. Sound thinned to a hum. The wind froze mid-sigh. A drifting leaf stopped halfway to the dirt. Even Garchomp's charge stuttered into frames, her first two steps stretching into a slow-motion crawl.
Mr. Fuji's cane dug into the earth. "Space yesterday… time today?" he whispered.
Ethan felt the pressure roll over him, heavier than gravity, older than language. Metronome's light intensified. Munchlax's cheeks puffed as he drew breath—dark-blue sparks coalesced at his lips, the air around them bending as if time itself were being wound tight on a reel.
"Garchomp, move!" Cynthia snapped, forcing the command through the drag.
Garchomp gritted her teeth and shoved forward through the syrupy air—
Munchlax exhaled, and a beam of condensed, cobalt light ripped across the field.
Roar of Time.
The blast hit like a hammer falling through centuries. Garchomp vanished inside it, hurled backward into a warping oval that irised open behind her. The edges of the rift shimmered with prismatic turbulence; grit, chalk lines, even light itself skated toward that hungry mouth.
Cynthia lunged a step. "Garchomp!"
Gasps popped around the gym. Someone whispered Dialga's name and choked on the sound.
The slow-time veil snapped. Wind and shouts rushed back, scaffolding rattled, the leaf finally finished its fall. For a heartbeat there was only the rift, spinning like a coin.
Then Garchomp burst out of it and crashed to the dirt, scraped, scorched, breathing but beaten. Cynthia dropped to a knee beside her, relief and fury warring across her face.
The rift convulsed once more. A silhouette strode through the turbulence—vast, armored in deep blue, lines of pale metal tracing divine geometry across its body. Golden eyes slid across the gym like the sweep of a pendulum.
"Dialga…" Cynthia breathed, reverent and stricken. "The god of time."
Mr. Fuji's mouth opened, shut, opened again. "Two days… two gods…"
Dialga's gaze lingered a fraction on Ethan, on Munchlax, on the scar in the air. Time itself seemed to hold the note. Then the deity tilted its head as if satisfied with some private measure, turned, and stepped backward into the current. The rift folded like velvet and was gone.
Silence. Then Munchlax plopped down hard, the light dying from his fingertips. "Ka~…" he sighed, drained and proud.
Ethan was already moving, sliding energy cubes into his hands. "Eat. Slowly." He lifted his voice. "Mr. Fuji—food, please!"
The old man startled, then waved volunteers forward. Trays arrived—berries, bread, anything dense with calories. Munchlax stuffed his cheeks, humming between bites, eyes shining up at Ethan: Did you see? Did you see?
"You were incredible," Ethan said, unable not to laugh. "But we save that trick for when we have to, okay?"
Across the ring, Cynthia recalled Garchomp, fingers trembling before they stilled. She rose and looked straight at Ethan. "I refuse to accept a loss decided by fortune alone. When Garchomp recovers, we battle again—without Metronome."
Ethan nodded once. "Agreed."
He turned—then caught the way Charmeleon was standing, just beyond Munchlax's little mountain of food. Tail flame steady, eyes lowered. The system's whisper confirmed the tiny sting: one point of closeness, shaved by jealousy.
Ethan crouched, palm warm against Charmeleon's head. "Hey. You're still my first pick. The one I rely on when luck isn't coming. What Munchlax does costs him everything for a while. What you do lasts."
Charmeleon held his gaze, doubt flickering—then clearing. The tail flame flared. He bumped Ethan's chest with his forehead, a small, fierce demand to be held. Ethan obliged, smiling despite the adrenaline still in his blood.
Hao exhaled the breath he'd been holding and lowered the flag. Around them, voices tumbled over one another—students arguing about the way the air had thickened, the color of the beam, whether the leaf had actually stopped or if they'd imagined it. Mr. Fuji leaned on his cane and looked very far away, as if reading lines only he could see.
"Another time," Cynthia said, softer now, and left with her shoulders square, the promise of a rematch hanging in the dust.
By afternoon, the gym had settled back into its ordinary chaos: scaffolds creaking, Machoke hoisting beams, students drilling footwork. Munchlax finished his last bowl with a contented "Ka~," then curled at Ethan's boots and snored. Charmeleon, still tucked under Ethan's arm, watched him sleep, then tilted his chin to be scritched.
Ethan let his breath out slowly. Two days, two gods. If this was luck, it was the kind that bent probabilities around itself. He glanced at Munchlax's dozy smile, at Charmeleon's steady blaze, and at the empty patch of air where time had torn, and he thought: We'll need more than luck, soon.
Outside, Lavender Town resumed its rhythm, unaware or unwilling to believe the legends that had brushed its edges. Inside the half-built gym, Ethan opened his ancient dictionary to the page Mr. Fuji had marked—red, silver, call—and traced the strokes again, committing their weight to memory.
Tomorrow, he promised himself, would be training. Not for chance. For certainty.
And when the gods looked back again, he'd be ready to look back.