Nova had been on his feet all morning, and after one sip of year-old cola, he made his way back to the Gym's living quarters with his patience running low.
The old man was still asleep.
Nova stared at the closed door for a moment, then quietly reached for a Poké Ball.
He released Growlithe into Mort's living room, waited until the Puppy Pokémon had padded inside and looked back at him with a curious tilt of its head, and then gently closed the door without a word.
Nova settled cross-legged in the hallway and picked up Sprigatito, holding the small Pokémon's front paws and swaying them gently back and forth.
"Pay no attention to what's in that room," he told it conversationally. "A Meowscarada has standards."
From the other side of the door came the sound of something heavy being knocked over.
Then Mort's voice, in rapidly escalating alarm.
"Ow — whose Growlithe is this?! How did you get in here — don't chew on my shoes!"
A crash.
"Hey, that's a wire — not a chew toy—"
Another crash, louder.
"Not the TV! Absolutely not the TV—"
"Stop ramming the sofa, it won't survive — stop, stop—"
Then, in a tone of genuine desperation: "Please, I am begging you — not those discs. Not those. I have nothing left if you bite those—"
Nova quietly pushed the door open a few centimetres and peered inside.
Mort was standing in the middle of the room in a shredded undershirt and shorts, looking like he'd lost a battle with a lawnmower. Beneath his feet was a collapsed pile of what had, until recently, been his sofa. The TV was face-down. The coffee table's tempered glass had gone in three directions. The air conditioner was hanging at an angle from the wall. Scraps of chewed fabric were scattered across the floor alongside broken plastic and glass shards.
Mort had a Luxury Ball in one hand — clearly his personal Pokémon, kept for exactly these situations — but he hadn't thrown it. He couldn't. Because Growlithe had identified the thing that mattered most and was holding it firmly in its jaws: a neat stack of colourful discs, the kind with elaborately posed women on the covers.
These were, Nova gathered, originals — imported, out of print, irreplaceable — collected over many years from sources Mort had apparently never disclosed. If Growlithe applied any real pressure, they would be gone.
Mort was not moving.
Nova decided that was sufficient. He slipped the Poké Ball out of his pocket and recalled Growlithe through the gap in the door, the red beam arcing neatly inside before the door clicked shut.
He wedged it from the outside and waited.
For a moment there was silence. Then came the sound of footsteps crossing the room at speed, followed by furious knocking from the inside.
"Nova! You little — you did this on purpose, didn't you?! If you've got the nerve to pull this, you've got the nerve to open this door!"
Nova, from the hallway: After all that trouble breaking in earlier, it would be rude of me to just walk into your room.
He did not open the door.
He waited until the knocking slowed, then stopped, then resumed at a less frantic pace, and then went quiet altogether. Once the old man's breathing had settled — it took a few minutes — Nova opened the door with an expression of complete innocence and surveyed the wreckage with wide eyes.
"Old Man. What happened in here? Did something upset you?" A pause, perfectly calibrated. "It wasn't me, was it? Ha."
Mort looked at him. His voice, when it came, was surprisingly even.
"Where did you get that Growlithe? That kind of spirit is rare."
"From a reputable breeder over in Forest City," Nova said, keeping the same cheerful tone. "He causes all kinds of trouble at home. I thought, since you're basically half a master to me, I'd bring him over for a visit."
Mort's eye twitched. "Half. You said half a master, and this is how you show gratitude? You don't think of me when there's something good?"
Nova expected more shouting. Instead, Mort's expression shifted into something that looked dangerously close to calm.
"For that 'half a master,' all of this was worth it."
Nova felt his stomach drop slightly. That's a trap. That's absolutely a trap.
"Since you acknowledge me," Mort continued, in the tone of someone laying pieces on a board, "when are you planning to take this Gym off my hands?"
Nova looked at him.
"Old Man. Are you part Aipom? You grab onto anything you're handed." He held up one finger. "Half. Not a whole. Half a master. Are you following this?"
"Besides — when someone inherits a master's legacy, the master usually leaves them something worth having. You've spent over thirty years treating this place like it doesn't exist, and now that you're getting older, you suddenly remember it's real property? A broken bowl doesn't need to be passed down through generations."
Mort had raised this subject before, more than once. He knew his own history — arrogant in his younger years, always something more important than the Gym, always somewhere else to be. He had never taken it seriously. Now, at an age where serious reflection was becoming harder to avoid, he had looked around and found himself alone, with nothing to show for it except this run-down building and whatever was left of his Pokémon.
He wanted to find someone to carry it forward. Someone talented enough that the Withered Gym might actually mean something again.
The problem, as Nova had identified, was that no talented trainer in their right mind would take on this mess voluntarily. The natural path was out — travel, train, compete in the Norlandia Conference, eventually build something of your own. Taking over an existing Gym, especially this one, meant paperwork, maintenance, challengers on a schedule, and staying in one place indefinitely.
Nova had seen what being tied to a Gym looked like even for someone at the top. Charlie Tucker — Gym Leader of Luma Gym, one of the most respected trainers in Goldenlight City — had cut a training trip in the mountains short the moment a poaching group was reported near the city. A Gym wasn't a base of operations. It was a responsibility that followed you everywhere.
So regardless of what angle Mort tried — obligation, nostalgia, guilt — Nova wasn't going to agree.
Mort was quiet for a moment.
Then: "What if I could get you a Pokémon slot for a Pseudo-Legendary?"
Nova went very still.