League Calendar Year 799, January 13.
The long-awaited Champion Assessment in the Paldea region finally concluded successfully. The teacher-student battle also sparked quite a bit of discussion in smaller circles.
But the influence of these events would only slowly reveal itself afterward.
Early morning.
"Espeon~"
With fur as smooth as velvet and the red gem on its forehead glowing faintly, Espeon stretched its body. Its forked tail curled and swayed happily in the morning sunlight.
Its purple eyes glanced at the still-sleeping Lucas and its little sister. A hint of human-like helplessness appeared in them.
Lucas's habit of sleeping in whenever possible was one thing, but her sister's changes had become quite significant.
Perhaps because they had evolved during the day and night respectively, the little sister not only had trouble sleeping at times when she should have been asleep long ago, but also became rather energetic at night.
She had probably patrolled the farm grounds with Houndoom and the others again last night. She had completely adapted to a nocturnal schedule.
In contrast to Umbreon, the older sister Espeon actually got sleepy more easily at night and slept better, while becoming quite active during the day.
This was similar to their habits before evolution, so Espeon quickly adjusted to the rhythm.
Luxray had already left the room early. Espeon had only gotten up after the sky was fully bright.
It seemed Luxray had gone with Serperior and the others again to train on the open ground far from the new house, where it wouldn't make too much noise and disturb everyone's rest.
Espeon actually admired the senior generation that included Luxray.
They had followed Lucas from the very beginning, "conquering the world" together, and ultimately built this home that welcomed her and her sister.
Espeon didn't know the full details and hadn't heard the seniors explain them in depth, but many Pokémon on the farm had similar experiences to her and her sister. They had been rescued and taken in.
Earlier ones included Sawsbuck and the others, plus Vespiquen.
Later there were the Shuckle siblings rescued from a distant place, as well as the Tapu Fini and Popplio that had come from another world.
Espeon had always felt that Lucas, who went around helping Pokémon in need, was very kind. That was why she could let down her guard, trust him completely, and ultimately complete her evolution.
She was also grateful to the "seniors" who had provided shelter for the weak her, and she admired their daily proactive training.
All she could do in return was shoulder her responsibilities as a member of the farm and do what she was capable of.
Looking at the closed bedroom door handle in front of her, Espeon subconsciously wanted to use Psychic to turn it.
Just as a faint glow appeared in her purple eyes, the figure of Oranguru flashed through her mind.
The Psychic power Espeon was about to gather immediately dissipated.
Recalling some of Oranguru's teachings, Espeon tilted her head. In the end, she gave up on using Psychic. Instead, she elegantly leaped in place like a house cat, hooked her paw around the door handle, and used her own body weight to pull it down and open the door.
With a soft "click," the door opened.
A satisfied expression appeared on Espeon's face.
After evolving, she could often do things her past self couldn't. Espeon had no resistance at all to her own evolution.
Like that one day in the past.
While playing with her sister, she had accidentally run into a room, and the door had slammed shut in the wind.
No matter how hard she had tried to jump back then, she could never reach the handle.
After many attempts she finally managed to grab it, but her weight wasn't enough to push it down.
Under her sister's uneasy gaze, she could only blame herself for "being unable to do anything." Such things would never happen again.
Familiar with the route, she headed to the kitchen. As expected, the six Falinks and Audino were bustling about, and the aroma of breakfast was already wafting from the pots.
After spending a little time suppressing her appetite, Espeon approached Oranguru, who was handling logistics for them.
"Mei~ Good morning."
Espeon raised a paw toward Oranguru.
Oranguru usually looked very dignified and serious, but once you got to know it, you would discover it was a reliable type that paid attention to every detail.
Nowadays, Espeon's Psychic training was also conducted under Oranguru's guidance.
She was not a naturally Psychic-type Pokémon. Even though everyone had praised her intelligence before evolution, she herself had not been exposed to many Psychic-type moves.
Moreover, during evolution, thanks to the interference from the very approachable-yet-actually-extremely-powerful Calyrex in the farm, Espeon's own Psychic power—or rather, mental strength—far surpassed that of others evolved under similar conditions.
According to Oranguru, in terms of sheer quantity, Espeon's Psychic power might already be comparable to its own.
Lucas had mentioned that Oranguru's Psychic abilities were on par with the main force of some Gym Leaders who specialized in Psychic types. Espeon still found this a bit unreal.
Comparable to Oranguru? Me?
In Espeon's view, Oranguru completely outclassed her by miles in Psychic abilities, while she herself—who was usually quite clever—performed like a complete beginner in that area.
"Yare yuta~"
Even though what Oranguru said after waving at her was in "Oranguru language," under the effect of a mysterious power, Espeon understood its meaning perfectly.
"Good morning. Today we'll continue with control training for Psychic~"
"Mei~"
Espeon nodded nervously, her gaze falling on the basket of fresh vegetables. She began concentrating with full focus.
Slowly, as a faint glow appeared in Espeon's beautiful purple eyes, an invisible force spread out. It awkwardly grasped a small vegetable and began sorting it.
That's right—this was Espeon's "Psychic training."
Sorting vegetables was a technical task. No matter how fresh the vegetables were or how well they had been stored, yellowed or rotten leaves were still inevitable.
At this stage, she had to remove those leaves in advance, leaving only the fresh parts.
She also needed to carefully strip away tough stems and repeatedly rinse the roots to remove dirt.
To accomplish all this required using Psychic with a dexterity comparable to a human's five fingers.
—But because Espeon had gained enormous power the moment she evolved, she often couldn't control her output properly.
The small vegetables would either snap or end up torn and ragged.
She had been training for several days and still hadn't reached the rinsing stage.
Seeing Oranguru multitask and deftly remove leaves from over a dozen small vegetables at once, it would be a lie to say Espeon wasn't envious.
To achieve that, she could only diligently follow Oranguru's slow training.
Because the power had increased suddenly during evolution, training it was actually harder for her than for others.
On the other hand, Oranguru comforted her by saying that as long as she practiced until it became second nature, her high starting point would make her stronger than most of her kind in the future.
This was also why, upon waking, she hadn't used Psychic to turn the door handle but had chosen to open it manually instead.
—She was afraid she would rip the entire handle off.
At this moment, Espeon actually felt a bit envious of her little sister.
When Umbreon absorbed moonlight, it mostly enhanced physical abilities. Adapting to that was naturally much simpler than dealing with the extra "pair of hands" she had gained.
Oranguru smiled as it watched Espeon fail repeatedly. While waving its fan to correct her Psychic control technique, it continued preparing ingredients for the Falinks and Audino.
Once everything was done and it told Espeon that morning's training was over, Oranguru was about to get up. Following Lucas's instructions from the night before, it planned to wake him early so he could slip away and avoid the situation.
But the "persistence" and "obsession" of the person Lucas wanted to avoid were clearly not so easy to evade.
It was only 7:30 in the morning. Before Oranguru could even move, the doorbell connected directly from the farm gate rang first.
Seeing this, Oranguru smiled helplessly.
It seemed his young master had still underestimated his student's enthusiasm for battling.
Especially now that she had truly become a "Champion-level Trainer" and, in a sense, stood on the same level as Lucas.
How many people could even spar with her?
And here she was, knocking on the door.
Oranguru could only first have the fast Arcanine bring Nemona over, then have the pair of Tandemaus holding feather dusters let Nemona wait in the living room for now. It would also have her stay for breakfast as the young master's beloved disciple.
After finishing all that, Oranguru slowly made its way upstairs to the bedroom.
—Anyway, it was already too late. Whether he woke up early or late made no difference now.
Oranguru was rather curious what expression his young master would show when he was woken up and heard that the person he wanted to avoid was already sitting in the living room.
…
Lucas kept a straight face the entire time.
After harmoniously finishing breakfast, since this wasn't an official public battle anyway, he shamelessly used the combination of Mega Evolution + Terastallization + Z-Move.
Aside from the arena being limited to the Galar region and himself lacking a Dynamax Band to trigger Dynamax, he had used every existing battle system available.
Nemona lost even faster than she had the previous evening.
Lucas thought she would at least back off a little. After seeing him use Mimikyu's exclusive Z-Move, she might think about going to the Alola region to train for a while and participate in the Island Challenge to obtain a Z-Ring so she could use Z-Crystals.
—But Nemona simply left behind the words "Teacher really is strong. My goal has been refreshed again," along with some valuable gifts that Sebas had prepared according to the household's wishes, and then energetically ran off.
She fully embodied what it meant to "do as one pleases."
It would have looked a bit cooler if she hadn't needed to stop and rest every 100 meters.
Lucas was certain that if he hadn't reminded her that Pokémon couldn't engage in high-intensity battles nonstop because it would drain their energy too severely—
—Nemona would definitely have said something like "Let's battle again at noon, and again in the evening."
Fortunately, Nemona had only raised one main team so far. Her second team, the night patrol team (led by a Ghost-type), had only recently begun formal training.
Otherwise, she probably would have rotated through Team 1, Team 2, and Team 3 to keep challenging him nonstop.
No one knew where her abnormally enormous stamina for battling came from, considering she got out of breath after just a few steps of running.
It felt like she could be like the future Ash, using Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Dynamax one after another in the Masters Eight finals without even panting.
After seeing Nemona off, Lucas finally breathed a sigh of relief.
There were no classes today—actually, there were no classes for the entire month. School would only resume in February once the renovations at Uva Academy were complete and it reverted to Naranja Academy.
This was the one-month holiday that occurred every season.
It was time to think about what to do today.
As time passed, temperatures rose.
The outside world was no longer a silver-covered landscape. Once the ice and snow melted, spring would soon arrive.
There weren't many pressing matters piled up on his hands right now.
One was the purification of the Treasures of ruin. That could wait; he could discuss it with Raifort when school started.
The second was something left over from a few months ago when Ash had temporarily stayed at the farm.
The giant Dragonite that was looking for "its own kind" should currently be with Lugia, who was out traveling.
It wasn't good to keep leaving it with Lugia. Lucas planned to take the giant Dragonite soon to look for a giant Tentacruel and see if the giant Dragonite would treat it as one of its own.
If that didn't work, he would have to consider finding some time-related Pokémon and sending it to the ancient past where giant Pokémon gathered.
—Wait, time-related?
Lucas suddenly remembered the reclusive female turtle on his farm. He vaguely recalled that when Tera energy became sufficiently dense, it seemed capable of producing the miracle of time-space travel?
He would plant a flag for now. If in the future he couldn't find help from Celebi or Dialga for accurate time-space travel, he could activate the time machine plan.
There would always be a way to help the giant Dragonite.
Lugia had mentioned it was heading to the seas near Paldea. He wondered if it was Kalos, Galar, Hoenn, or even farther to Alola?
If it was Hoenn, that would be much more convenient.
Coincidentally, he had some matters that required a trip to Hoenn anyway.
The invitation from Professor Lund in LaRousse City.
And Wallace's repeated invitations, asking him to bring Ninetales and Milotic to experience Hoenn's Contest culture and to introduce his good friend to Lucas, among other things.
Lucas had already prepared himself: if Nemona kept coming every day, he would have to consider running away on a spontaneous trip.
—Hoenn sounded pretty good.
The Delibird was also traveling there and had run into Ash's group a few times, conveniently beating Ash up again.
Besides these matters, there was one quite important issue that needed to be resolved soon.
"It's been dragged out all the way from Alola. The timing is about right now. I'll go take a look."
Muttering this, Lucas changed his clothes and headed straight for "Thunder Lake" in the farm's lakeside area.
After several expansions, Thunder Lake's coverage had grown considerably larger.
Apart from some areas separated by netting for fish farming, most of the lake had been left to the aquatic Pokémon on the farm to inhabit—including the new members Tapu Fini and the Popplio it cared for.
With the ice and snow gradually melting, ice floes no longer frequently drifted on Thunder Lake's surface. This made the essentially tropical Popplio much more comfortable.
It and Tapu Fini had also quickly adapted to the farm's rhythm and environment.
There was still some time until lunch. At this hour, Tapu Fini and Popplio should still be active in the southern Paldea seas, communing with the power of nature and resonating with ocean currents.
However, a few days ago, Tapu Fini had already told Lucas that it had accumulated enough power to use the special mist and could help someone meet a departed person connected to them at any time.
He had only postponed it until today because of the Champion Assessment.
But before letting the Dragonite leader meet its Trainer, Lucas still needed to check its mental state.
Soon, Lucas spotted the back of the Dragonite leader by the lakeside, surrounded by three Dratini, a Dragonair, and a Dragonite sunbathing.
It wasn't just the Dragonite family. Even the Politoed, Poliwhirl, and the three Garganacl living in the nearby salt house had gathered around the Dragonite leader.
And today's Dragonite leader looked a bit different from usual.
Lucas didn't interrupt their conversation. After looking the Dragonite leader up and down, he noticed the difference.
—It was wearing the red-topped, black-brimmed hat that had been carefully stored in his satchel.
Lucas had heard some things about the Dragonite leader from Mewtwo.
After their adventures, the Dragonite leader and its Trainer seemed to have settled down in a city in Paldea.
Thanks to Dragonite's outstanding flight speed, they had found a good job at the Paldea Post Office they had established in that city.
This was also why, during the rebellion, Mewtwo had asked it to deliver a letter instead of cloning it.
The Dragonite leader had once been a Pokémon mail carrier.