The next day, the noon sun shone brightly over the mountain, and the air felt crisp and clean.
Nova had gone to bed far too late the night before, so it was no surprise that he woke up later than everyone else. By the time he crawled out of his sleeping bag and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, the signal tower maintenance crew and the two camping brothers had already finished their lunch and were getting ready to head back down the mountain. Nova, meanwhile, was only just starting to prepare his first meal of the day.
It was not that he was lazy. The truth was that the previous night had kept him far busier than he had expected. After finishing the livestream, he had spent a long time on the phone with Aresdra. After that, Thelma had needed company, and he had stayed up talking with her too. Through all of it, his mind had been working at full speed, carefully choosing every word, afraid he might accidentally let something slip that he should not.
By the time he finally managed to lie down and close his eyes, Sprigatito had decided that was the perfect moment to start causing trouble.
True to its nature as a cat, it had spent the better part of the night doing parkour inside the tent, leaping from one surface to another with no care for anyone trying to sleep. Nova already had too many thoughts weighing on his mind, and Sprigatito's midnight gymnastics made it nearly impossible to drift off.
Now, standing in the morning light, today's Nova had no shortage of complaints for yesterday's Nova.
You really outdid yourself, didn't you? Leaving all of that for me to deal with.
Still, if he was being honest, today's Nova did not feel any more ready to face those problems than yesterday's Nova had been. So, as he often did, he chose to believe that tomorrow's Nova would surely find the courage and the answers he currently lacked.
Escapism might not be the most admirable habit, but it certainly got the job done.
After eating his fill and carefully packing up the tent and the rest of his gear, it was already half past two in the afternoon. Setting off at this hour meant that no matter which trail he chose, he would be walking in the dark before he reached the bottom. Even so, Nova could not bring himself to spend another night at the campsite. He had come out here for an adventure, not just to sleep under the stars. If he wanted to laze around, the sofa at home would have been a much more comfortable option.
His mind was made up. He was heading down.
As punishment for keeping him awake all night, Sprigatito lost its usual privilege of riding on Nova's shoulder like a fluffy scarf. From now on, it would walk on its own four paws, just like any other Pokemon on the team.
The decision did not sit well with Sprigatito at all.
It made its feelings known by trudging along the dirt path with a slow, dragging gait, placing each paw down as if the ground itself had personally offended it. Sprigatito had always considered itself something of a little princess, and princesses did not get their paws dirty on dusty mountain roads. On top of that, its stride was far shorter than Nova's. For every two steps he took, Sprigatito had to scramble through four or five just to keep up, which turned its walk into an undignified trot.
Sprigatito was not impressed.
Nidoking, on the other hand, had completely transformed the moment they started heading downhill. On the way up, it had groaned and grumbled with every step, carrying the bulk of the team's supplies without much enthusiasm. But now that the path sloped downward, it was a completely different Pokemon. It dropped onto all fours the way it had back in its Nidorino days and launched itself down the steep slope at full speed, with Growlithe bounding along right beside it.
"Hey! Watch the supplies in that bag!" Nova called after them, but they were already gone.
There was nothing he could do.
As for Corviknight, it had taken one look at the open sky, spread its steel wings, and disappeared into the distance within two minutes of being released from its Poke Ball.
Nova looked around at what remained of his team and sighed. Then he noticed Mudkip, the newest member, sitting quietly inside the backpack with its head peeking out over the zipper. It blinked at the trees, the rocks, and the trail ahead with wide, calm eyes. It had spent the past two days doing almost nothing but observe the world around it with that same peaceful, unfazed expression, and somehow, through all that quiet watching, it had already leveled up once.
Nova almost admired it.
He had no choice but to do what any trainer in his position would do. He scooped up the dawdling Sprigatito, tucked it under his arm, and broke into a jog down the mountain path, trusting that Sprigatito and Mudkip would keep him from tumbling off a cliff if things got out of hand.
As it turned out, they did exactly that, more than once.
Mudkip's Protect activated whenever Nova stumbled too hard, absorbing the impact before it could do any real damage. Sprigatito's Ally Switch was even more impressive. The move had been its specialty for a while now, but Nova had not fully appreciated just how polished it had become until today. Sprigatito could not only swap its own position with a target but had also learned to swap the positions of two other targets at the same time, without even needing to include itself in the exchange. The targets did not have to be Pokemon or humans either.
Several times on the descent, when Nova was running too fast and was about to go off the edge of the trail, Sprigatito calmly swapped him with a small rock sitting safely on the path, and just like that, the danger was gone.
Once Nova realized what Sprigatito could do, he started putting it to creative use.
The trail down the mountain offered a wide, open view, and from that high vantage point, Nova could see a long way ahead. As long as a target was within Sprigatito's line of sight and within the range of its power, Ally Switch could bring Nova straight to wherever Growlithe had run, without Nova needing to walk a single step of that distance himself.
It was a simple arrangement. Growlithe got to run the path twice and burn off its seemingly endless energy. Sprigatito got to practice its move in real conditions. And Nova covered ground far faster than he had any right to on foot.
He did not try the same trick with Nidoking.
That was a deliberate choice. Growlithe was the kind of Pokemon that could run all day and still wag its tail and bark happily when Nova appeared in front of it, thinking it was all some wonderful game they were playing together. Nidoking was a different matter entirely. It was sharp, experienced, and not easily fooled. If Nova ever made it run an extra stretch of mountain trail without a very good reason, Nidoking would simply sit down in the middle of the path and refuse to move. And given that it weighed well over a hundred kilograms and was currently carrying the majority of the team's supplies, that was not a standoff Nova was likely to win.
Nidoking's role on the team had quietly shifted from frontline battler to something more like head of logistics. Nova, who handled the cooking, depended on it more than he liked to admit. A cook with no supplies was just a person standing near a fire. It was better not to test Nidoking's patience.
Thanks to this noisy, chaotic approach to hiking, what should have taken half a day was done in just two or three hours. The sky had turned a warm shade of red by the time Nova reached the lower slopes, and the sun was sinking toward the ridgeline.
He still felt good. Growlithe had covered most of the hard ground for him, and his legs were holding up well. He decided to push a little further and find a place to camp partway up the next mountain. If everything went smoothly, he could reach one of the small villages nestled in the Cengluan Mountain Range by the following day.
He was just settling into that plan when Mudkip stirred inside the backpack and let out a soft, uncertain cry.