Night had settled over Belon City. Inside the Slowpoke Seaside Holiday Hotel, David was flat on his back on the large bed in his VIP suite, thoroughly exhausted.
The beach barbecue had been a great time — genuinely enjoyable, for him and all his Pokémon. The problem was Shelgon. Specifically, the problem was feeding Shelgon. Of the three whole lamb carcasses David had ordered for roasting, he and the rest of the team managed to get through roughly half. The other half went to Shelgon. Along with an unspecified but substantial quantity of pork belly and beef, most of the vegetables, most of the fruit, and every last fish from the multiple large buckets they had spent the afternoon filling.
Shelgon, it had to be said, was not a picky eater. Whatever David put in front of him, he ate. The concept of "enough" appeared to be entirely foreign to him.
It was a good thing David had a Trainer's physical conditioning. Anyone without that kind of baseline endurance, managing a meal of that scale, would have been finished long before the grill cooled down.
They had wrapped up the barbecue by mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day on the beach until dusk before heading back to the hotel. Now his other Pokémon were settled in their rooms, and the suite was quiet. David finally had a moment to look at the system notification that had appeared that morning after the Gym battle — the one he'd set aside to deal with later.
He opened it.
[Detected that the Host has obtained the fourth Gym Badge — triggering special achievement quest: Gym Road · Part One (4/8)]
[Phase One: Obtain eight Gym Badges from Level 1 Gyms. Subsequent quests will unlock upon completion of Phase One. Current progress: 4/8.]
"A quest?" David read the notification twice. "I thought collecting the Badge was the whole reward. I didn't realise a series of quests only kicked in after the fourth."
When he had challenged the Blazing Sun Gym and earned his first Badge, the system had flagged it as the 'First Badge' achievement — 3,000 system points and one item draw, and that had seemed to be the end of it. It hadn't occurred to him that there was a second layer waiting.
He let out a quiet laugh. His original plan had been to earn four Badges before the high school league, and that was exactly what he'd done. If he'd aimed lower — stopped at two or three — this quest chain would have stayed locked for who knows how long.
That said, the timing wasn't especially useful. David didn't expect to be back to Gym challenging any time soon. The high school league was the priority, and the rest of this quest would almost certainly have to wait until that was behind him. Still — staged rewards were staged rewards.
[Rewards available to claim: 5,000 system points / Random Move Extractor / one Item Draw Charm]
The points and the Draw Charm he understood. The points added to his running total, which was edging back toward thirty thousand, and the Draw Charm could be saved toward another Ten-Pull. What he hadn't seen before was the Move Extractor.
[Random Move Extractor: Upon use, randomly obtains one Pokémon Move TM. Any Pokémon's move may be generated. Resulting TM may be taught to any compatible Pokémon.]
David stared at the description for a moment.
Any Pokémon's move.
He understood the "compatible Pokémon" limitation well enough — TMs had always worked that way. What was making him pause was the other half of that sentence. Any move. In principle, that included signature moves, exclusive moves, moves tied to specific Legendary Pokémon. Moves that had no business appearing in anyone's item box.
If I pulled Judgment out of this thing, that would be absurd.
He turned the thought over for a second, then set it aside. The odds of pulling something from the Legendary pool on a standard Random Move Extractor were almost certainly negligible — if the system even allowed it, there was probably a higher-tier version for exactly those moves. A Legendary Exclusive Move Extractor, or something along those lines. This was the entry-level version.
Either way, there was no reason to hold onto it. The Draw Charm could wait; the Move Extractor was practically begging to be used. He might as well test his luck.
"System — use the Random Move Extractor."
[Processing request... Extracting random move...]
The system interface flared. A wheel appeared, divided into sections coloured by all eighteen Pokémon types, and began to spin. David watched it without blinking.
It slowed. The indicator drifted and settled on Normal-type, where it blinked several times.
[Congratulations! You have obtained the Normal-type Move — Fake Out.]
David exhaled. Not an exclusive move, but not a dud either. Fake Out was genuinely good — a priority move that always caused flinching on the first turn, useful for disrupting opponents and buying a split second of control in a close fight. In competitive play, it was considered a staple for a reason.
There was also the minor point that it was broadly considered the signature move of the world's single most important Pokémon, whoever one thought that was.
For Lucario specifically, it filled a real gap. Lucario's ranged toolkit currently consisted of Aura Sphere and Dragon Pulse — both strong, both long-range, but nothing with priority. Fake Out, on top of its flinch effect, could give Lucario an opener that opponents wouldn't immediately know how to read. The combination made a lot of sense.
He checked his points total. The 5,000 from the quest, added to what he'd earned from the Azure Wave Gym challenge earlier, put him back past thirty thousand. He made a quiet decision on the spot: these points stayed untouched. No ordinary draws. The only exceptions would be necessary consumables — Potions, Revives, things with an actual practical use. Everything else went into the fund for a Legendary-tier draw. That meant saving until one hundred thousand.
It was going to take a while. He was fine with that.
Satisfied, David set down the mental checklist, let his eyes close, and was asleep not long after. The opening ceremony of the Sea God Festival was in the morning, and mornings started early.
The alarm went off before sunrise.
Two rings. A hand emerged from under the covers, located the clock by some instinct, and silenced it. A long exhale followed. Then, slowly and without enthusiasm, David sat up.
Five in the morning. The window was still dark. The city outside hadn't started yet.
He got up anyway. The Sea God Festival began at sunrise — a traditional detail, the ceremony timed to the first light of the day — and if he wanted to be there for the opening, he had no choice but to move.
He dressed, opened the suite door, and found Lucario already sitting in the small living area outside, clean and composed, posture straight. He'd clearly been up for some time.
"Luca! — Good morning."
"Good morning." David yawned without bothering to cover it. "Go wake the others, would you? Breakfast has already been sent up."
Lucario rose without comment and went to do exactly that.
Rising early in summer was tolerable. In the dead of winter, dragging yourself out of a warm bed at five in the morning to stand in the dark and cold was a different kind of suffering. David accepted it philosophically and began working through breakfast.
Shelgon remained in his Poké Ball. After the previous day's meal, there was no reasonable expectation that he would need to eat again for at least another day or two. He was fine.
That was, in its own way, one of Shelgon's more convenient traits. He ate enormously and infrequently. And beneath that armoured shell, David could feel something through his Aura — a life force that was growing steadily stronger each time he checked. Quieter on the outside than any of the others, but building toward something.
It wouldn't be much longer, David thought, before that shell cracked and something with wings came out of it.
He was looking forward to that.