Chapter 316: Reunion with Looker
Returning to Canalave City from Iron Island, Ryan was accompanied by Byron this time. Although Ryan had agreed to attend the Pokémon competition as a special guest, Byron wasn't about to let him leave Iron Island empty-handed — he pressed a complete set of evolution stones on him, including rarer ones like the Dusk Stone and Ice Stone.
Ryan didn't particularly need them, but he accepted them in the spirit they were offered. On the ferry back, Byron filled him in on the details of the competition. It was structured in several stages: a marathon relay event involving both Trainer and Pokémon, followed by a fishing competition. The top eight finishers from those events would advance to a final Pokémon battle, and the overall winner would receive a rare and mysterious Pokémon as the grand prize.
Ryan rubbed his chin as he listened. The fishing competition in particular stirred something — it reminded him of how he'd first met Brendan and May, at a competition just like it. He hadn't expected to stumble into something similar way up here in Sinnoh.
Lillie, meanwhile, was listening to Byron's explanation with growing interest. By the time Byron finished, she had already made up her mind.
"I'm signing up," she said.
Ryan stared at her. "Lillie." He wiped an imaginary bead of sweat from his forehead. "You have two Legendary Pokémon. You'll just completely steamroll everyone else. These are regular trainers."
Lillie's expression didn't waver. She signed up anyway.
Ryan accepted his defeat. He had been assigned as the special guest commentator for the event — and now his fiancée was a registered competitor. He wasn't entirely sure what that looked like from the outside, but he suspected it looked at least somewhat questionable.
There were still several days before the competition began, so Ryan and Lillie settled in at the Canalave Gym. During that time, Byron asked Ryan for battle guidance, and Lillie also sparred with Byron on a few occasions.
Outside of Shaymin and Manaphy, Lillie's team had grown considerably strong under Ryan's training. Her Ninetales, Togekiss, Salazzle, and Mawile were all well above average. Her Charizard in particular had benefited enormously from Ryan's own Charizard taking it under his wing — dragon to dragon, so to speak — and its strength now ranked just below Shaymin and Manaphy, quietly surpassing even Ninetales, which had been Lillie's very first partner.
On the morning of the competition, Ryan looked out at the crowd filling the Canalave waterfront plaza and went quiet for a moment. He turned to Byron. "Why are there this many people?"
Byron gave him a thumbs up and grinned. "Ryan, you really underestimate how well-known you are right now. Your name recognition is well past what most Champions get. Ever since Journalist Natsume ran that interview and broadcast the footage of you catching Zygarde, your popularity exploded. Unless someone is completely off the grid, they know who you are. A significant portion of these contestants entered specifically because they heard you were the special guest — and because first place gets to spar with you."
Ryan went very still. "When did the sparring get added?"
"Well," Byron said, clasping his hands together with the expression of a man preparing to weather a storm, "I was originally going to serve as the sparring partner for the winner. But given how many people showed up, I figured you'd be a better draw. I didn't tell you earlier because I was fairly certain you'd say no." He bowed his head apologetically. "Sorry about that."
Ryan looked at Byron for a long moment — this rough, broad-shouldered Gym Leader who had, apparently, been running a quiet con on him since Iron Island. He hadn't expected that level of maneuvering from someone who carried a pickaxe everywhere.
But the promotion had already gone out. Walking away now would embarrass Byron and disappoint a lot of people who'd traveled specifically for this.
"Fine," Ryan said. "I'll do it. Sparring with beginners isn't exactly my idea of an exciting afternoon, but I'll give you that one."
Byron looked genuinely relieved.
The event's MC took the stage and launched into an extended explanation of Canalave City's history as a port town, the cultural significance of the waterways, and the origins of the competition itself. By the time the speech showed no signs of ending, Ryan was fighting to keep his eyes open.
"And now," the MC finally announced, "let's have a few words from our special guest — Ryan, President of the Mercenary Guild — to officially open the competition!"
Ryan accepted the microphone, cleared his throat once, and said: "I know everyone's been waiting. Let's get to it. Competition starts now."
The crowd erupted.
The Pokémon Marathon relay worked like this: Trainers ran one full lap of the designated course on foot, then returned to the starting line and released their Pokémon to run a second lap in their place. While direct attacks on other competitors' Pokémon were prohibited, moves that accelerated your own Pokémon or restricted the movement of others were entirely legal — which made the Pokémon leg of the relay chaotic and entertaining in equal measure.
The first leg tested the Trainers themselves. Lillie passed through without difficulty — Ryan made sure she kept up a consistent training regimen, and a single lap was well within her range. Ryan watched her from the commentator's platform as she ran, somewhere in the middle of the pack, and smiled to himself. She was holding back. He could tell.
As he tracked Lillie's position, another runner caught his attention. The figure at the front of the pack — moving with the kind of efficiency that came from years of fieldwork rather than casual fitness — made Ryan's brow furrow.
It was Looker.
Ryan recognized him immediately. He'd crossed paths with the International Police officer before, back at Giant's Chasm. Looker was supposed to be operating in Unova under Nanu's jurisdiction. What was he doing in Canalave?
Ryan didn't want to flag him publicly or make a scene. He filed the question away and kept watching.
Looker crossed the finish line of the first lap in first place, produced a Poké Ball without breaking stride, and released a Genesect. In one smooth motion he vaulted onto its back. Genesect's disc-shaped frame locked into flight configuration and it surged forward at low altitude, putting an enormous gap between Looker and the rest of the field almost instantly.
Then Lillie crossed the line.
Her Alolan Ninetales appeared immediately, and Lillie swung up onto its back without hesitation. Ninetales exhaled a dense wave of freezing air as it ran, coating the course ahead in a sheet of ice. Then it stepped onto that ice and began to glide — long, fluid strides eating up the distance at a pace that had nothing to do with running anymore.
The field behind them descended into chaos. The sudden ice made the course nearly unnavigable for Pokémon not suited for it — scrambling for grip, slipping, losing time. Ninetales, meanwhile, extended the ice further with each pass of its breath, gliding forward with elegant efficiency and closing steadily on Genesect in second place.
Looker held first. But Lillie's second-place finish wasn't what surprised Ryan — it was the collateral damage. Because the first leg was timed, and Ninetales' ice had rendered the course effectively impassable for most of the field, the majority of participants were eliminated in one stroke. When the results were tallied, barely twenty competitors had made the cut.
Ryan stared at the standings board.
He looked at Lillie.
Lillie looked back at him with an expression of perfect, composed innocence.
Ryan turned back to the board. "…That's my fiancée," he said quietly, to no one in particular.
(End of Chapter)
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