Mort had wanted Nova to stay for dinner, but Nova had a reasonable suspicion that a man who had lived alone his entire life probably hadn't developed strong opinions about food quality. He declined politely.
On his way out, Mort reached toward Sprigatito's head for a farewell pat. Sprigatito flattened its ears and hissed.
Don't.
It was already evening by the time Nova got back to Harmony City. Aresdra had been busy all day and wasn't going to have time to cook. A quick phone call settled it — they'd grab something from the food stalls on the street behind the school.
When they got home, they let the two dogs loose in the backyard and collapsed onto the sofa together, too tired to move, leaning against each other in comfortable silence.
"How did JoJo do today?"
It was Aresdra's first time bringing Riolu to school. Nova was curious.
Aresdra's expression landed somewhere between a smile and a grimace. She rested her head against Nova's shoulder and sighed.
"It certainly made an impression."
"Well, Riolu is rare. It must have drawn a crowd."
"That's not quite what I meant." She paused. "To put it simply — on its very first day, it beat someone up."
Nova blinked. "That actually happened?"
He quietly pulled up Riolu's profile in his mind. Nothing there indicated aggression toward people — no Untamable or Hostile traits, nothing like that.
What he did notice was that Riolu had gained four levels in a single day and was now sitting at level 15. That was faster than Sprigatito, who was already an impressive learner. Something had definitely happened.
Aresdra said quietly, "I don't blame JoJo. It was just looking out for me."
Being followed, approached, and persistently bothered was something Aresdra dealt with regularly at school — people who didn't take the hint and didn't leave until they got bored on their own. She had learned to manage it with practiced indifference.
Riolu didn't know how to do indifference.
What it understood was simple: some people made Aresdra uncomfortable. And when Aresdra was uncomfortable, Riolu felt it — Fighting-type Pokémon were sensitive that way. So whenever someone wouldn't leave her alone, Riolu would issue a warning first. The problem was that a small, round-faced Riolu hissing at someone tended to produce the opposite of intimidation.
Eventually, patience exhausted, it stopped warning and used Quick Attack — directly into a persistent admirer's stomach.
The impact was apparently memorable.
One student from the Battle Department took the humiliation badly enough to release his own Pokémon and demand a battle — against both Riolu and Aresdra. What followed was not what he had expected. Riolu, level 11 at the time, used Detect to read and avoid a coordinated attack from three Pokémon all above level 20. It wasn't just surviving — it was finding openings, countering, and taking two of them down before the supervising teacher arrived and put a stop to the whole thing.
The third Pokémon got away clean only because of the interruption.
Nova stared at the backyard with quiet respect. Through the window, both dogs were rolling around on the grass, play-biting each other without a care in the world. One had spent the morning holding a Ground-type Master's collection hostage. The other had just outmaneuvered three higher-level Pokémon using nothing but its natural instincts.
They looked very relaxed about it.
"Were you called in by the teacher?" Nova asked.
Aresdra put on her most pitiful expression. "Severely punished," she said, in a tone of theatrical distress. "He told me not to let it happen again."
Nova laughed despite himself. "And the other guy?"
"Three days of on-campus suspension."
Fair, all things considered. The boy had started it, escalated it, and ended up on the losing end anyway. The teacher had assessed the situation accurately.
Nova made a quiet mental note: two hundred thousand League Coins for Riolu had been one of the better decisions he'd made recently. With JoJo's record established, anyone thinking about pestering Aresdra was going to need to factor that in. It would make things easier for her.
A couple of days later, with nothing urgent on his schedule, Nova went with Aresdra to visit the Exeggutor Orphanage.
The headmaster was ninety years old and in the late stages of memory decline. When he saw Aresdra, he called her by his mother's name — a woman who had passed away decades ago. When he saw Nova, he decided Nova was the grandson he had never had.
Which was technically true, since the headmaster had only one grandchild, and she was standing right next to Nova.
After a patient and increasingly tangled conversation, Aresdra had somehow ended up four generations Nova's senior. Nova chose not to examine that too closely.
Two days after that, while Nova was out back directing his small group of Pokémon in a digging project to extend the garden, his Pokégear rang.
It was Officer Jenny from the Forest City Security Station. She opened with pleasantries, then mentioned, in passing, how things were going at the Jenny Family Kennels. The latest litter had been fully reserved, and most of the puppies had already gone home with their new owners. The average sale price had come in about twenty percent above the standard market rate.
Nova thought that was entirely fair. The quality of that litter had been exceptional. If it had been him running the numbers, he'd have pushed for fifty percent above market at minimum.
Jenny hadn't called just to share good news, though. The actual reason was that the request Nova had filed with the League some time ago had been approved. All the paperwork had been processed and the formalities were complete.
He could collect a Torchic for Aresdra from the designated Daycare whenever he was ready.
Nova had been waiting for this.
He ended the call, got on Corviknight, and flew straight to Aresdra's school. He had her pulled out of class, took her to the principal's office, and explained. The leave permit was approved without difficulty — the principal offered his genuine best wishes for Aresdra to find a partner that suited her well.
Choosing a Starter Pokémon was one of the most significant moments in a trainer's life. Even with Riolu already by her side, that choice still mattered.
And so the two of them set off — Sprigatito settled on Nova's shoulder, Riolu trotting alongside Aresdra — lifting into the sky on Corviknight's broad wings while the students below watched with expressions caught somewhere between confusion and pure envy.