[Natural Black: When the time comes, I want to witness your truth.]
Grey's phone lit up, showing that message.
He stared at it for a long while, then only replied with a single word: "Mm."
After that, there was nothing else.
He scrolled through all his messages—aside from Caitlin, he wasn't chatting that actively with anyone.
After talking for so long, Caitlin and Grey had gradually become familiar with each other.
Her messages kept increasing—she practically wanted to hug her phone and share her daily life nonstop.
That was normal too. Cynthia, in her daily life, was either handling Champion business or doing archaeology research, so even when she chatted with Caitlin, it stayed pretty "ordinary."
But Grey was different.
Aside from the dojo's offline work, he basically lived off online traffic.
As long as he had his phone in hand, he could practically reply instantly.
After a few rounds of that, Caitlin would naturally think of Grey first.
[Sleeping Beauty: Another day of steadily controlling my psychic powers. Hehe.jpg]
[Dojo Primeape: Nice. When I first learned to control aura, it took me quite a while. You've only been at it a few days and you can already control psychic power—yeah, you've got talent. Like.jpg]
Grey meant that from the heart.
He even felt that Caitlin's talent was roughly on the same level as Sabrina's.
Top-tier psychic, for sure.
If either of them truly lost control, their psychic power could flatten an entire area.
Sabrina was "better" in that sense—she'd just turn people into dolls, and most of the time she'd turn them back the next day.
The worst time was when Petrel invited her to join up—she blew up her own Saffron Gym until only the signboard was left.
As for Caitlin, before she met Grey, it was basically: small explosions every three days, big explosions every five.
How many times had the Battle Castle been blown up by now?
Thankfully, Caitlin's family was rich enough to rebuild it the same day.
But because of that, even though the current Frontier Brain position was being handled by her butler Darach, plenty of Trainers who went to the Sinnoh Battle Frontier didn't want to challenge the Battle Castle.
Over time, fewer and fewer people could chat with Caitlin.
Besides Cynthia, it was basically only butler Darach, Grey, and the other Frontier Brains.
Most people had their own work to do. And when Darach was free, he liked reading "CEO romance" novels—he barely had time to pay attention to her at all.
So in the end, only Grey was relatively free.
[Sleeping Beauty: Really? Am I really that amazing?! Anticipating.jpg]
On Caitlin's side, seeing Grey's message genuinely struck her heart.
[Dojo Primeape: Of course. Among the psychics I've seen, you're easily top one or two. Like.jpg]
[Sleeping Beauty: Thank you for praising me! I feel so much better! Happy.jpg]
These past few days, Caitlin's mood had improved a lot thanks to chatting with Grey.
Honestly, the emotional value streamers give is insane.
Two lines of chat and she was already cheered up.
And that made Caitlin even more excited for the day they'd meet in person.
"Alright then—I need to pack!"
With a flick of her fingertips, the wardrobe flew open, revealing piles of dresses.
All outfits Caitlin liked—Lolita dresses, gowns, cute one-piece dresses.
Casual outdoor clothes… she really didn't have many.
"Forget it. I'll go out tomorrow and buy some clothes."
After thinking for a long time, Caitlin decided she'd go shopping the next day to prepare for the upcoming trip.
…
…
In the blink of an eye, it was the next day.
There were only a few more days until the scheduled visit to Silph Co.
And today, Grey decided to throw himself fully into dojo challenges.
Before challengers arrived, Grey checked his phone and saw the group chat was buzzing.
[Celadon Vileplume: Recent challengers are kind of strong… and they're hitting so hard! Sob.jpg]
Seeing Erika complaining, Grey got interested immediately. His fingers flew over the keyboard.
Erika might not be as strong as the others, but among the eight major Gyms, she was still at least "strong Gym" level.
If even she was "accusing" the challenger's strength, that meant the opponent was at least Elite Four gatekeeper level!
With that kind of strength, Grey wanted to see who it was.
[Dojo Primeape: Tell me more. Curious.jpg]
[Poison Elite Four Candidate: Erika, are you talking about… a Trainer wearing a mask, using an Incineroar?]
[Celadon Vileplume: Yes yes yes, that's the one! That person is probably Champion-level, right?! Why are they suddenly challenging Gyms?! I'm just an ordinary little Gym Leader—why must I suffer like this… Sob.jpg]
[Celadon Vileplume: @Dojo Primeape, Gym Leader Grey, can I come hide out in Saffron City for a while? Ever since Team Rocket got uprooted in Celadon, my Celadon Gym hasn't had a peaceful day.]
[Celadon Vileplume: I feel like this might be Team Rocket's BOSS finding someone to take revenge on me! Yes, it must be that! Otherwise there's no reason so many problems pile up! Even perfume isn't selling well now!]
[Giovanni of the Earth: …I think Team Rocket's BOSS probably isn't bored enough to take revenge on a local Gym Leader like that?]
[Dojo Primeape: Giovanni, I disagree. You're not Team Rocket's BOSS—how would you know what the BOSS is thinking? Maybe the Team Rocket BOSS is just a dark-minded person who loves petty revenge like this!]
[Giovanni of the Earth: True. After all, we don't know who Team Rocket's hidden BOSS is, nor what their mentality is. We can't draw conclusions.]
After sending that, Giovanni went offline.
Grey started processing the information in the group chat.
Wearing a mask, using an Incineroar, and supposedly Champion-level.
That wasn't the Masked Royal—Professor Kukui?
The instant Koga sent that message, Grey basically guessed it.
But Kukui coming to Kanto to challenge Gyms?
That really was unexpected.
[Celadon Vileplume: Has anyone else in the group gotten beaten by the masked guy?]
[Cerulean Mermaid: 1]
[Pewter Onix: 2]
[Poison Elite Four Candidate: 3]
[Old Man Not Bald: 4]
[Retired Unova Colonel: Oh? You all got beaten too? Good thing I already—wait, I'm taking a call.]
[Retired Unova Colonel: F**k! He raids my place while I'm gone?! Masked guy, you bastard! 5!]
Counting Erika, that made six Gym Leaders challenged by Kukui so far.
[Dojo Primeape: Then if he's aiming for the Indigo Plateau Conference… doesn't that mean he's only two badges short? And judging by his Pokémon, he's an Alola Trainer?]
Seeing Grey's message, all the Gym Leaders in the group paused what they were doing and started thinking further ahead—toward what this might mean for the future.
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