The next day, at Imperial Capital First High School's Pokémon battle gym, a small crowd had gathered around the practice field.
"Machamp, use Brick Break!"
The dark blue, four-armed Pokémon raised one arm high, a white light gathering along its fist, and without hesitation brought it down in a fierce overhead strike toward the blue-black figure standing across from it.
"Still too slow..."
David, standing at the edge of the field, shook his head as he watched Machamp's attack unfold. The move carried real power, but it leaned so heavily on brute force that it had become slow and predictable. The destructive potential was there, certainly, but the execution felt mechanical, almost rehearsed.
An attack like that might work well enough against a large, sluggish opponent. Against Lucario, though, it was practically an invitation to be countered.
Just as David expected, Machamp's heavy swing found nothing but air where Lucario had been standing a heartbeat earlier.
Facing the incoming strike, Lucario shifted its weight with barely a flicker of motion, as though Machamp had simply misjudged the distance on its own. The blow grazed past Lucario's side, falling just short of its mark.
The two Pokémon passed each other in that same instant.
Then Lucario's paw ignited with the same white light, and it lashed out with its own Brick Break, catching Machamp squarely at the back of the neck in a blur of motion.
Thud.
The heavy, muscular body dropped to the ground. Lucario's strike had barely tapped the spot, but it landed precisely on a nerve cluster, and Machamp instantly slumped into a deep, childlike sleep.
An Agile Brick Break. David's Lucario had spent months studying the pair of Hisui-era training manuals in his possession, and of all his Pokémon, it had risen furthest in mastering both the Agile and Strong styles of combat—surpassing even the naturally gifted Mienshao by a wide margin.
Then again, perhaps "gifted" undersold it. Back when David still lived at his grandfather's house, Mienshao itself had said that Lucario possessed the instincts of a true martial arts prodigy.
In barely a week, Lucario had absorbed everything Mienshao had to teach. Since then, it had gone on to inherit the fighting traditions passed down through his grandfather's family, along with the two scrolls once belonging to Urshifu.
After months of study and countless sparring matches, Lucario had begun weaving these different disciplines into something distinctly its own, and the results were already impressive.
It would be premature to call it a true master of the art, but there was no question it had earned the right to walk among serious practitioners.
That single Agile Brick Break, thrown with such effortless timing, had carried the faint edge of a Wicked Blow.
The gap in skill between the two Pokémon was so wide that what had just happened barely qualified as a battle. It looked far more like a training session than a fight.
After a moment, Machamp stirred and pushed itself upright, shaking its still-groggy head, clearly unsure of where it was or what had happened.
It wasn't until Machamp caught sight of Lucario standing nearby that things clicked into place. It shuffled forward at once and settled obediently beside its teacher. Lucario, in turn, tilted its head and began what looked unmistakably like a lecture, gesturing as it spoke.
The message was clear enough without words: here were the mistakes from the exchange, and here was what still needed work.
Machamp listened and nodded along, over and over, looking every bit like a schoolchild being corrected by a teacher. In truth, Machamp was the older of the two by several months—but in that moment, the roles fit so naturally that no one would have guessed it.
David had to stifle a laugh. Half of him wanted to pull out his phone and film the whole scene. He hadn't realized his own partner had this side to him.
The other members of the school team watching nearby didn't look surprised in the slightest.
"Called it. One move, just like I said."
"Tch, you got lucky this time! Weren't you supposed to be from a martial arts school? How is your Machamp still weaker than my Scyther?"
Judging by the small crowd of Pokémon gathered around the field, it was obvious that Lucario had more than one student under its wing.
Machamp's trainer ignored the teasing from his friend, his expression caught somewhere between admiration and quiet unease.
The unease came from one simple question: could a Pokémon belonging to such a recently registered trainer really perform like this?
That kind of composure, that precision—he'd only ever seen it before in his father's Gym-level Hariyama. Having trained at a fighting-style dojo himself, he understood exactly how rare and how dangerous the Lucario in front of him truly was.
The admiration came from the same place. As a trainer who specialized in Fighting-type Pokémon, what wouldn't he give to have a partner like that?
Off to the side, Dominic watched the whole exchange with quiet satisfaction.
It had been his suggestion, after all, to have David's Lucario take on the role of teaching the school team's Pokémon proper combat technique.
He'd noticed something different about that Lucario throughout the training camps. It rarely stood out during the sessions themselves, but it hadn't been idle either—it had spent that time quietly observing every member of the team.
After the training camp in the secret realm beyond the mountain, the team's Pokémon had gained plenty of real combat experience, but their technique remained noticeably rough around the edges. What they needed now wasn't more battles—it was correction.
That was exactly why Dominic had turned to David's Lucario for help.
It was a solution that benefited everyone. While the team's Pokémon sharpened their form, Lucario got a chance to test and refine its own understanding in the process.
So far, it seemed to be paying off. With the main competition still several days out, Dominic was confident the team still had real room left to grow before it counted.