“The bounty!” yelled Sunny out of nowhere.

  “The what now?” said Darren.

  “You never collected the bounty for Wish!”

  “Of course not,” said Darren. “I’ve no way to prove Wish was causing the trouble. Besides, I think the anonymity is worth the price of the bounty for now. I don’t want to go revealing my hand before the Rondo tournament is about to start.”

  “It was like, half a year's worth of grant money,” said Sunny.

  “Yeah, more or less,” agreed Darren.

  “There’s Rondo,” I said, interrupting their discussion. The city revealed itself as we crested a small hill. Unlike Nocturne, which had been radically modernised, Rondo kept its traditional architectural style giving it an idyllic look. It splayed out in stocky buildings and red roofs, squeezed between the vast Heles Beach and Lake Aria. On the far side, the Pokémon University loomed over the rest of the city.

  The road to Rondo had been short and easy. Meloetta’s Bridge was the wonder it was made out to be. With continuous foot traffic, bell sounds took on an airy, almost fluty tone, not dissimilar to the singing of a Lapras in the wild. When crossing, we had kept to the middle, only slightly terrified of falling off the open edge. The towers were open again for tourism, but we skipped those wanting to get to the city quickly. What I wasn’t prepared for were the steps. There were four hundred going up the central arch, and another four hundred going down. My calves were killing me by the time we got to the other side which made the rest of the walk a drag despite the magnificent views of Lake Aria marred only by what appeared to be violent storm clouds far in the distance.

  “Well, this is where we’ll be staying the next few weeks,” said Darren. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve been a few times, it’s pretty nice to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here,” said Sunny. “Too many students throwing parties all the time.”

  “Let’s just get to a Pokémon Centre,” said Joey. “I need to lie down.”

  That killed the conversation, not because Joey was a Moody Muk, but because Darren and Sunny were getting legitimately worried about him. While it wasn’t exactly uncommon for Pokémon trainers to have their quirks – in fact, it was something they were known for – I didn’t know of anyone who seemed to be in constant pain the way Joey was. As we travelled, it had become increasingly clear that Espurr never left his head and was giving him a constant migraine. Any words of concern were met with angry rejection and neither of my companions knew how to deal with the situation. I might have had more sympathy for him if he even tried to be more open, but since he didn’t want to be helped, I wasn’t going to be the one to force it on him.

  My phone dinged. It was a message from Godfrey saying he was waiting just outside the city entrance for us. We had been sending messages to each other since I left Crescent, and I was jittering with excitement to see him again. Mareep looked up from where she was walking beside me. I smiled at her.

  “You remember Godfrey, don’t you Mareep? I know he left home when you were very young, but you used to like him even more than me back then.”

  She gave me an affronted look and nipped my hand. I took that to mean that of course she remembered my brother, he still visited sometimes. Also, she always liked me best, I shouldn’t be silly.

  We descended the hill and found him sitting on a bench in the shade of a large marble arch with RONDO carved on the top. He was a leaner, cleaner version of Daddy with short hair and a massive grin. He swept me into a hug as soon as he saw me and gave Mareep head-pats. She beamed up at him, and I found myself doubting her claim that she ever liked me better.

  “This is Comfey,” I said when he let me breathe. My sleep fairy-type barely moved, but sent a wave of fresh paper odours his way.

  “And these are Sunny, Darren, Joey, Hector, Coral, Auri, Espurr, and Wish is in his pokeball and Caviar is flying around someplace.”

  Godfrey laughed and told me to slow down, then introduced himself to my companions at a reasonable speed.

  “So what are your plans?” he asked.

  “First we need to find a Pokémon Centre we can stay in while we’re in Rondo, and then we can talk about what to do until the tournament starts,” said Darren. Godfrey scratched his neck bashfully.

  “I’d offer you a place to sleep in my dorm, but you’ll have a better bed at a Centre anyway. You all have your trainer licence, yes? You can lodge there for free as long as you want in that case. Come on, I’ll show you to the nearest one.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Pokémon Centre’s were the heart of the towns of Silín. They only had one, and on top of their usual services the Centre’s also functioned as a town hall. Cities, however, needed several and as a result, tended to be of less cultural importance to the city-folk. The buildings were usually more modern, but smaller and less pronounced. The first one we came to said they were full. It was an oversight on our part, the tournament was beginning in three days' time and we made the, in hindsight, silly decision to wait in Crescent.

  It took us three tries to find a Centre with free rooms. Lucky us, it was the last two twin rooms they had available, so I would be rooming with Sunny again. We split to leave our bags and refresh ourselves some and made to meet in the lobby in an hour. Much like in Nocturne, the room was big enough not just for the trainers, but for their Pokémon too. Mareep, however, stomped a little circle on the hard and cold marble floor and asked to be let back in her pokeball. Sunny’s Pokémon were much more enthusiastic about the space and Caviar and Coral immediately started tussling on Sunny’s bed.

  “Do you want to go shower first?” asked Sunny.

  “If you’re fine with that,” I said.

  Comfey followed me in, which I felt a little weird about until the cute little thing began playing in the water. She found anything and everything amusing, especially if it was in any way new to her. Her insistence on hardly ever leaving my side was somewhat adorable and somewhat worrying. I still couldn’t figure out what attracted her to me in the first place. I found it hard to believe it was because of my drawings. Sunny seemed to think it was though. She said fairies could be like that. They followed their own logic, and it was better to simply go with it than to attempt to figure it out.

  I exited the shower feeling fresher than I had since leaving home. Sunny rushed in, keen to wash away her own tiredness, leaving me to babysit her Pokémon. I ignored the still fighting Wingull and Mareanie and picked up Hector by wrapping a cloth around him. I still didn’t know how Sunny handled him with bare hands, a Wooper’s slime wasn’t the most poisonous thing in the world, but it was certainly unpleasant. He was adorable, however, rubbing his oversized head against me.

  “Hey there buddy,” I said to him. “Could you tell your teammates to chill out a bit.”

  He made some cute noises which garnered the attention of the other two for a moment but was then promptly ignored. He whimpered sadly.

  “That’s okay, only Sunny can keep those under control.”

  The squabble intensified as Caviar was thrown across the room narrowly missing my head. Hector squealed as I squished him harder.

  “Sorry,” I said. “He came a bit close.”

  I stood by the wall, trying to build up the courage to get between Coral and Caviar. The latter flew close to me again and I noped out of the idea. Hector squeaked again, finally prompting Comfey to move. In a burst of lavender smells, she hopped over to Sunny’s bed and formed herself into a crown on Coral’s head. The Mareanie’s tentacles almost immediately went limp. Caviar wasn’t quite satisfied, and tried to pick on Comfey, but as he approached, he lost steam and ended up nesting beside them on the bed with a series of annoyed squawks.

  Sunny came out shortly after, oblivious to the mayhem her two little horrors got up to.

  “Everything good?” she said. “Are we ready to go downstairs?”

  We met Godfrey in the lobby waiting for us at an otherwise empty table.

  “So how’ve you been, sis? Not getting into too much trouble I hope.”

  “I’ve been very good, actually,” I said. “I don’t get into trouble.”

  “At all, at all,” added Sunny with a smirk. We were joined by Darren and Auri and Godfrey’s attention was taken by the rare rock-type. As soon as we had gotten the presentations and niceties out of the way, he’d been studying the Larvitar with an intensity which made even her uncomfortable.

  “Is Joey coming down?” asked Sunny.

  “He’s staying in our room,” said Darren. “He says he’s not feeling well.”

  “Is he okay?” said Godfrey. “Should we tell Nurse Joy?”

  “I don’t know, he says he doesn’t need help,” said Darren, looking uneasily over at Sunny. She shrugged.

  “Okay then, what’s your plan for the day?” asked Godfrey.

  “The first thing we need to do is register for the tournament,” said Darren.

  “That’s easy,” said Godfrey. “You should be able to register for the Newbie Tourney at any Centre. Just ask the league official.”

  “Wait, what did you call it?” I asked.

  “Newbie Tourney, it’s just something the locals call the Rondo tournament. It’s the first one of the league cycle and there’s this sort of unspoken rule that only new or newish trainers should enter. The idea being to ease them into competitive battling and to give them a bit of a head-start with the points. Of course, there’s a bit of a debate as to what qualifies as a new trainer. Most say it’s first time circuit challengers, but some argue that depending on the circumstance, it could be second, or even third year trainers. Others also say experienced trainers with inexperienced Pokémon should also be allowed to join. Ultimately, since there’s no official rule, people do what they want and there is always the danger that a veteran will come in and sweep. Doesn’t usually happen, though. It’s a bad look. Terrible for their public image, and pretty much kills their chances of getting sponsors.”

  As he’d said, registering was a quick affair. The league official was at a counter to the side of the lobby and she inputted our information into the database with barely a word exchanged between us. When she finished, she put her head in her arms and went back to napping.

  “What next?” asked Godfrey.

  “I don’t know, you live here. What’s there to see?”

  “Rondo is full of places to visit,” he said. “Although, I think what would interest you most is that Professor Leaf is giving a talk down at the university in a couple of hours.”

  “Can we go?,” I said. “Does it cost anything?”

  “Well that’s the most eager I’ve heard you be in a while. Figures you’d be the studious type,” said Sunny.

  “What’s the talk on?” asked Darren at the same time.

  “It’s on mega evolutions,” said Godfrey. “Professor Leaf is Elaine’s father,” he added, which was unnecessary.

  A look of understanding passed over my friends faces.

  “So that’s why you want to go,” said Darren, giving me no mercy.

  “So? It’s still an interesting topic,” I argued.

  “You wanted to go before you heard what it was on,” said Sunny. “But I agree, it is,” said Sunny. “And I won’t deny, I’m also curious to find what kind of man raises a champion".