Rushing hastily to the salt house.
By the time they arrived, the rock salt piled up inside had already been collected in advance, and the three big guys inside the salt house were staring helplessly at the much smaller door.
Compared to their stages as Nacli and Naclstack, the change into Garganacl was truly dramatic.
Visually, its height was at least three meters, exuding a powerful sense of oppression. Most of its body was made up of special salt, and the faint salty scent in the air made one feel as if they were standing by the sea.
This was the Pokémon known as the Rock Salt Pokémon. It was said that as long as you sprinkled its salt—rich in minerals and mysterious power—on an injured Pokémon, it could instantly heal their wounds. This was Garganacl.
Why Garganacl evolved to be so tall was not immediately important. The urgent task at hand was to figure out how to get them out of the salt house.
Fortunately, after hearing Oranguru's explanation, Lucas simply took the Poké Balls belonging to the three Pokémon. With a flash of red light, all three Garganacl were successfully withdrawn in moments.
This made Lucas heave a sigh of relief and quietly mutter in his heart, "The power of science is truly amazing!"
If not for Poké Balls, getting the Garganacl out today would have required either destroying the salt house or using a Psychic-type Pokémon like Calyrex to teleport them out.
Lucas then pressed the Poké Ball buttons in turn, releasing the Garganacl outside.
The morning sunlight shone on the trio, who stood tall like guardian deities at the gate. Their white salt bodies seemed to be wreathed in a golden halo, looking exceptionally holy and pure.
Big Sister Eevee, who had run over with Lucas, immediately brightened at the sight. Fearless, she ran up to the lead Garganacl, calling out as if asking if she could climb up for a look.
Garganacl squinted its eyes and nodded good-naturedly.
With a cheerful cry, Big Sister Eevee displayed impressive agility for her small size. With a few running steps and some quick pawing, she leapt up onto Garganacl's shoulder.
The world viewed from three meters up was truly different. Looking out over the farm in the morning light, Big Sister Eevee was momentarily stunned.
Fortunately, she was a good big sister. She didn't forget about her younger sister, she called out, beckoning her to come play too.
Little Sister Eevee had been living on the farm for a while now. Compared to when they first met, she was much more cheerful and no longer jumped at every little sound like a frightened bird.
Even so, she wasn't mentally prepared to approach such a giant as Garganacl, and was understandably scared.
But with her sister calling and Lucas encouraging her, after a few seconds' hesitation, Little Sister Eevee stepped forward to stand before the lead Garganacl.
Garganacl recognized her and knew she was physically weak, so she couldn't just jump up like her sister.
After a moment's thought, it placed its palm in front of her, signaling for her to hop on.
Little Sister Eevee climbed on, and her view quickly rose. In just a few breaths, she was at the same height as her sister.
Gazing at the dazzling sunrise and the farm bathed in golden light, Little Sister Eevee was briefly entranced by the beautiful scene.
She stared unblinking at the not-yet-blinding sun until a few white grains landed on her nose, snapping her back to reality. Instinctively, she stuck out her tiny pink tongue and licked them.
The taste was—salty.
Surprisingly, rather than just tasting salty, she felt her originally weak body become a little stronger.
She looked over and saw it was the second Garganacl who had rubbed some sparkling fine salt from its fingertips for her.
Upon seeing this, Big Sister Eevee also wanted to try. At the leader's signal, the third Garganacl rubbed some salt for her as well.
Lucas walked over, pinched a small pinch of salt, and tasted it himself, his eyes lighting up.
The immediate impression was that the quality had improved greatly compared to before!
Unfortunately, since he wasn't injured, he couldn't properly judge the healing properties of Garganacl's salt.
Still, their evolution timing was perfect.
He was just about to head to Naranja Academy for class today.
With this in mind, Lucas let the Eevee sisters play with the Garganacl for a while, then turned to Oranguru and instructed, "Contact the Machamp Engineering Team later, and have them modify the salt house's door to make it bigger."
Oranguru nodded, committing the task to memory.
It asked, "Should we also expand the interior space? If so, we'd have to tear down and rebuild."
Lucas shook his head, "The inside looks big enough, so no need to rebuild."
"But…" Lucas gazed at the three unusually tall Garganacl, hesitating.
Their height was far beyond that of normal Garganacl!
Sensing Lucas's thoughts, Oranguru ventured a guess.
"Could it have something to do with the soil you secretly dug up from Mt. Silver, young master?"
"In theory, they should've been able to evolve long ago given their strength. They never resisted evolving—on the contrary, they were eager to evolve to increase rock salt production for the farm."
"Yet, it still took several months for them to finally evolve…"
Lucas was aware of the doubts Oranguru raised.
Initially, he just wanted to improve their diets and see if Mt. Silver's soil would make them stronger after evolving—after all, it was the soil Tyranitar personally selected for raising its young.
Now, though, the effect seemed almost too good.
The kids nearly mutated into Garganacl-Tyranitar hybrids.
No, even if Tyranitar itself came, it wouldn't be this tall—their Pokédex height is only two meters!
His thoughts wandered, but Lucas didn't forget to entrust the Eevee sisters to Oranguru, reminding it to give Little Sister Eevee her medicine on time. Then he retrieved the three Garganacl into their Poké Balls and called for Dragonite to fly towards Mesagoza.
As for what changes the Garganacl would show after evolving, there happened to be an event at Naranja Academy today—a perfect opportunity to test them out.
…
Naranja Academy, Battle Hall
Apart from Paul and Shizuka, Penny had also temporarily returned to the Academy for classes.
According to her, "I want to let my Flareon put her special training results to the test!"
Right now,
Penny sat beside Lucas, uncharacteristically proactive.
She tugged Lucas's sleeve, pleading, "Please, teacher, can you send me photos of them? Please!"
Lucas was speechless.
"You have so many Eevee at home. Why are you always after mine?"
"And last time, when you stayed late for training and I invited you to dinner at the farm—you saw them there too, didn't you?"
"Homegrown just isn't as fragrant as wildflowers, you know? Teacher, you wouldn't get it," Penny said, shaking her finger dramatically. "Besides, the idea of sisters surviving together in the wild really tugs at my heartstrings!"
"If I could, I'd raise every kind of Eevee, including the shiny ones. Teacher, your luck makes me so jealous it hurts!"
"Sometimes I think, why couldn't I have met them instead of you? That's more heartbreaking than missing out on a billion!"
Lucas said quietly, "Would you dare let Sylveon overhear you say that?"
Penny: "...I made sure to temporarily block the outside senses of the Pokémon in their Poké Balls."
"She shouldn't be able to hear, right?"
Shizuka, who was checking on Chansey and Porygon, perked up her ears and listened to their conversation, her expression odd.
After a moment, she looked at Paul, who was leaning against the wall, and asked curiously, "Paul, do you know why Penny likes Eevee so much?"
Her pale cheeks flushed slightly. It wasn't anything hormonal—just embarrassment as a woman in her twenties asking a boy barely ten years old such a question.
Paul glanced over, then closed his eyes and answered frankly, "Maybe it's some kind of fetish."
"But if it were me, I might also raise an Eevee if I had the chance."
"Although Eevee's battle strength isn't outstanding before evolving, the fact that it can choose from so many evolutions and still have solid stats makes it a good investment."
"As for raising a whole team of Eevee? Forget it. One is enough to patch a team's weakness."
Paul's analysis was extremely rational.
So rational that Shizuka began to doubt her own intelligence.
Are kids nowadays all so mature and calm?
Unable to resist Penny's pestering, Lucas gave her the newly developed photos of the Eevee sisters and Garganacl he'd taken that morning, intending to reprint the originals later.
Penny was overjoyed to receive them.
But as she began to admire the photos, she noticed something odd.
Staring at the three Garganacl, she blinked and asked, "Teacher, where did these Garganacl come from?"
"Ahem… This is a good time to introduce them."
Lucas simply stood up, clapped his hands, and drew Shizuka and Paul's attention as well.
"I have an announcement: Naclstack evolved into Garganacl this morning!"
With that, he released the three Garganacl from their Poké Balls.
Staring dumbfounded at the three-meter-tall Garganacl, Shizuka—who had the deepest basic knowledge of Pokémon among everyone present—felt her heart pounding wildly.
These three Garganacl… are just too huge!
Looking closely, the ones on the left and right were at least over three meters, and the one in the middle was about 3.1 or 3.2 meters tall!
If they grow any taller, they'll be as big as gods!
Penny's eyes widened, and she shivered all over.
She vaguely remembered Lucas saying before that Naclstack wasn't even in its final form, and only after evolving into Garganacl and then Terastallizing would it be complete?
Even Paul couldn't maintain his calm expression. His own Grotle had lost to Naclstack at the Academy, so he'd studied both Naclstack and Garganacl's data.
But all that dry data was crushed in the face of Lucas's Garganacl!
His instincts told him: The evolved Garganacl was on a whole new level of terrifying!
All three sucked in a sharp breath.
Meanwhile,
With the Garganacl leader holding him up, Lucas sat comfortably on its shoulder, stroking its uniquely textured body, a proud smile on his face.
Maybe his Garganacl could claim the title of "Largest Garganacl in the Pokémon World"!
But Lucas didn't forget why he'd brought them to the Academy. His gaze fell on the three students, making them shiver inexplicably.
He began, "Since Director Clavell took office, our Academy has been undergoing reforms. You've probably heard about this already."
"Starting this afternoon, we'll be holding a Battle Tournament on the Academy grounds. Any student confident in their abilities can sign up to compete."
The three nodded—they'd heard about it.
Lucas continued, "Now, Nemona, Eri, and Arven are all out on their treasure hunts, and many strong students have also left to train. You three are among the strongest left."
"But—"
He drew out the word, staring at them.
"Many students are watching you, wanting to beat you to prove themselves. Do you know why?"
Paul raised his hand and answered calmly, "Because we don't have to take the standard battle courses, and we're taught directly by you."
"That's right," Lucas nodded. He wasn't trying to spark rivalry—just stating facts. "Many of your challengers are former students of mine, but after my promotion, to streamline things, I chose Nemona's group and, later, Penny to continue teaching."
"Many of your opponents have gotten much stronger recently—some are almost as strong as Eri and Arven. Honestly, you're under a lot of pressure."
"So, I'll give you a chance. If you study hard, it's not difficult to apply what you've learned."
"—Besides your matches with each other, send out Garganacl to battle your classmates."
Lucas had thought this through.
This way, he could showcase his teaching results, observe how Garganacl performed post-evolution, and maybe spot new talent.
Three birds with one stone!
Plus, Garganacl's strength wasn't so overwhelming that it'd be unfair—they wouldn't just crush everyone.
In fact, this was a restriction Lucas set for them.
When he finished,
The trio looked incredulous at the thought of commanding Garganacl in battle.
It wasn't that they thought it was hard—they'd been "trolled" by Lucas's strategies enough to cope.
What they were really afraid of was—
Would using Garganacl in the tournament get them ostracized by the whole school?!
…