Nova checked the message from Purrloin. It had been sent at four in the morning, two days ago, which made perfect sense given Purrloin's nocturnal nature. The Dark-type cat spent most of its days sleeping and patrolled its territory through the night.
From past experience, Nova knew that Sprigatito's egg had taken three days to go from shaking to glowing before it hatched. But that little one had come out the moment the glow appeared. Lapras had been the complete opposite. It had been too lazy to even shake before birth. The egg had stayed still right up until the last possible moment, when a burst of brilliant hatching light finally filled the room. Nova had kept watch in the tent for half the night before Lapras had finally made its entrance into the world.
It seemed that every Pokemon had its own personality, its own way of coming into the world, and its own hatching period. Nova had no way of knowing whether he would make it back in time.
But he had to go home and check. Purrloin was a capable guardian, no doubt about that, but expecting a cat to look after a freshly hatched Pokemon was asking far too much of it.
So Nova immediately called out to Corviknight and had it turn around. The trip to Layered Rock Town would have to wait. They were flying straight home.
Flying directly over the city center was not allowed, so Corviknight had to take a detour, looping around from the direction of South Mountain before coming in to land on the crow perch in the backyard. Corviknight was not the fastest flier, and the longer route did not help. By the time Nova touched down, it was already midday.
Purrloin was curled up on its cat tree, sound asleep. The moment it heard movement in the backyard, it snapped awake. It took less than a second for Purrloin to recognize who had arrived, and within three seconds it had bolted from the living room all the way to the backyard and leaped straight into Nova's arms. Nova caught it easily, running a hand through its smooth, dark fur and telling it what a good job it had done watching the house.
Sprigatito, watching from nearby, felt its eye twitch.
It had already thrown a big fit in the Uninhabited Area earlier, and Nova had put up with every bit of it without losing his patience. If Sprigatito caused another scene now, Nova might actually start to think of it as nothing but a troublesome Pokemon with no sense. That was not something it wanted.
Still, watching Purrloin nuzzle into Nova like that, while the smug little cat deliberately flicked its tail in Sprigatito's direction, was almost more than it could stand.
Almost.
For Nova's sake, Sprigatito decided to let it go. It let out a small huff, turned its head away, and shut its eyes.
"I didn't see any of that," Sprigatito seemed to say to itself. "So it didn't happen."
Nova carried both cats, neither of whom showed any interest in letting go of him, and headed straight up to the third floor.
Nova's villa was large. Less than sixty percent of it was actually in use, with most of the rooms on the second and third floors sitting empty. There were only two people living there under normal circumstances, Nova and Aresdra, and they did not take up much space. Now that Nova was away on his journey and Aresdra had left for her trainee program ahead of her debut, the upper floors had been quiet for a long time. On some nights, Nova genuinely wondered whether a Gastly or a Duskull might have taken up residence in the unused rooms. At least Purrloin made its nightly rounds and kept things in check.
Trapinch's egg was being kept in one of the spare rooms on the third floor.
Trapinch naturally preferred dry, warm environments, so Nova had picked a small south-facing bedroom for it. Apart from the master bedroom, it was the room that got the most sunlight. Nova had covered the floor in a thick layer of fine sand and buried several pieces of Thermal Volcanic Rock beneath it. These special rocks, found in volcanic regions, produced heat on their own whenever the surrounding temperature dropped below twenty-two degrees. They kept the sand dry and warm without any extra effort.
The rocks would not go to waste after the egg hatched, either. They were a natural ingredient for Growlithe's diet anyway. Nova figured he could let Growlithe gnaw on one as a treat once the time came.
Nova pushed the door open and stepped inside. Sure enough, the egg was there, half-buried in the sand and rocking gently from side to side. The moment Nova walked in, the rocking grew more noticeable, as though the Pokemon inside had sensed another presence nearby and was responding to it.
Nova did not know exactly when the little one would hatch. It would probably be fine either way, but he was stubborn about this. He wanted to be there when it happened. Pokemon that were hatched by a Trainer rather than raised alongside their parents had already been separated from their kin. The least a Trainer could do was be the first face they saw when they came into the world. Showing up only after the fact felt cold.
So Nova sat down on the warm sand beside the egg, took out his phone, and settled in to wait for the hatching light.
There was not much news from the past week. The main story was that the auditions for the K.D.A. Girl Group had finally wrapped up. Twenty-four contestants remained: the top three finishers from each of the eight groups. From those twenty-four, only four would earn a debut spot.
The competition ahead was going to be tough.
However, media coverage was already predicting that interest in K.D.A. would actually drop during the knockout rounds and the finals, rather than grow. The reason was simple. When the outcome of a competition seemed nearly certain, watching it live felt no different from watching a recording. Without any real suspense, part of the audience would lose interest.
The issue was that four contestants had pulled so far ahead of the rest that most viewers saw the final four spots as already decided. Some were starting to wonder aloud whether the entire talent show had been built around these four girls from the start, with the company behind it, Nine-Tailed Fox, and the real force driving things from behind the scenes, Lennon, simply using it to build momentum for a pre-planned debut.
Four spots. Four girls who stood head and shoulders above the rest. It did not look like a coincidence.
The phrase people kept using online was: "They made the dumplings just for the sauce."
For a while, the four frontrunners, Aresdra among them, found themselves on the receiving end of some unpleasant comments from detractors.
Nova found the whole thing baffling. He could not speak for the others, but he shared a home with Aresdra. If she had some secret corporate backing, it had never once shown up in their daily life. The idea that Aresdra was being propped up by hidden money or connections was, in Nova's opinion, a complete injustice.
"These netizens crack me up," Nova muttered, scrolling through the posts. "Do I look like some kind of industry power broker to anyone? Because if the real 'capital' is out there somewhere, I'd love an introduction. I can sing and dance too, you know."
Part of the reason public opinion had gotten this heated was that Aresdra and Thelma had both made a strong impression during Group A's auditions, catching the attention of people well outside the usual fan circles. On top of that, some well-connected figures in the Trainer community had started digging into the contestants' backgrounds and sharing what they found.
Aresdra aside, the other three frontrunners had histories that were hard to ignore.
Thelma, of course, was the daughter of Charlie Tucker, a master of Grass-type Pokemon.
The other two were just as notable. One was the lead dancer of the Thousand Lakes Gym's water ballet troupe. She had built a strong following online, but had always performed in scuba gear, which kept her face mostly hidden. The competition was the first time she had appeared without it.
The last one was simply Lennon's younger sister, Janella.