“You!” A voice shouted from outside.

  I blinked and looked up from my book, seeing some of the other patrons of the cafe I was reading at do the same.

  Ted and Lucas were off training, but I had taken a break to get some coffee and read a book on the Larvitar line that I’d found at a local bookshop. They were an interesting species of Pokémon, but relatively rare and not a lot of Trainers had recorded raising one, so the information that was available was relatively sparse.

  The book I was currently reading was half-scientific text, and half-folklore, but I was hoping that I might be able to find some decent tips about raising a Larvitar in it.

  Zetian was also looking up from where she was lounging on a chair meant for the Pokémon of the cafe’s patrons, and her wings beat a few times in agitation.

  That shout had been vaguely familiar, and I had a sinking feeling as I felt a twinge of deja vu.

  I sighed, put the bookmark on the page I was reading, then turned to see a young man standing in the cafe entrance, chest heaving as he pointed his finger at me.

  “Please don’t get me kicked out.” I said.

  He flushed, realized a bunch of people were staring at us, then hurried over.

  “You!” He hissed, much more quietly.

  “Hi Kei- Kevin.”

  The boy glowered at me over his scarf.

  “You! What a lousy excuse for a rival you are!”

  “First of all, please don’t call me your rival, I’ve told you before that it makes me very uncomfortable. You’re just a kid, after all.”

  “I’m an adult!”

  “Uh huh. Remember what I said about not getting me kicked out? I like this cafe.”

  Kevin snorted and pulled out a chair, plopping down into it. Zetian buzzed, and he looked over at her.

  “Relax, I’m not going to do anything to her.” He turned back to me. “ You led me on.”

  “Woah, really bad phrasing there, please don’t say that.”

  He paused, and blushed.

  “You lied to me, whatever. You said you would meet me behind the Pokémon Center for a battle!”

  I sighed, and rubbed my forehead.

  “Listen, it’s been a really long couple of months, but from what I remember, you never even gave me the opportunity to accept or decline the battle, and then you left without telling me where I should meet you.”

  “I told you to meet me behind the Pokémon Center!”

  “Right.” I said, drawing the word out. “And which Pokémon Center did you mean?”

  Kevin opened his mouth, no doubt to say something angrily, then I had a flash of satisfaction as the moment of realization hit.

  “... We weren’t staying at the same Pokémon Center, were we?” He asked quietly.

  “It’s very doubtful.”

  He stayed quiet, and for a second I thought he was actually going to have some sincere self reflection.

  “Well,” He started. “You still owe me a battle.”

  I groaned and put my head in my hands.

  “Listen kid- Kevin, if I accept your battle, will you stop with this whole “rival” thing?”

  He puffed up.

  “What do you mean, will I stop, I’ll never-”

  I fixed him with a glare from behind my fingers and he blanched as Zetian began to hover in the air, the sound of hundreds of angry bees slowly rousing from their torpor.

  “Yes.” Kevin muttered. “I’ll drop the whole thing.”

  “Fine.”

  I stood up and pushed away from my table, making sure to leave some change as a tip.

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  /^\

  “Kevin!?”

  “Lucas?!”

  The two boys stopped at the edge of the practice field and pointed at each other in shock.

  “What are you doing here?” Lucas demanded.

  “I’m here to battle my rival!” Kevin boasted proudly, sticking his chest out.

  “I’m still not your rival.” I added, although nobody seemed to hear me.

  “What do you mean your rival? Alina is my rival!”

  “I’m not anybody’s rival.”

  “Bah! You keep telling yourself that, brat!”

  “Brat!? I’m two days younger than you! And out of the two of us, which one is a Lab Trainer?”

  Kevin puffed up even more. “That’s just because you stole it from me!”

  “Oh please, you never had any shot at getting into the lab, you barely passed trainer school.”

  “Well maybe things would have gone differently if my dad worked for the professor. Have you ever heard of nepotism?”

  “I’m surprised you know such a big word! Did you have to look it up?”

  I turned to look at Ted, who was strolling up to me with Switchback, a bemused smile on his face.

  “I’m getting a headache.” I sighed. “It’s like, right behind my eyes. Do you have any excedrin or something?”

  “What’s that?”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “It’s… never mind. Do you have any headache meds?”

  “No, sorry.”

  I sighed again, rubbing my temples as the argument between the two boys kept getting louder.

  “Enough!” I shouted, and they both stopped to look at me.

  They even had the gall to look offended.

  “Listen.” I pointed at Kevin. “I’m not your rival,”

  “Hah!” Lucas crowed.

  I pointed at him next. “And I’m not yours either!”

  “What?”

  “I’m not anybody’s rival! I don’t know what kind of TV you’ve all been watching, but real people don’t actually have rivals!”

  “They kind of do, sometimes.” Ted said quietly. “Especially if you’re a top-tier trainer. It’s a pretty small community and people tend to form rivalries in order to maintain the same level of drive - peer accountability and all that. Plus it helps with marketing if you’re selling merchandise, they love to have rivalries to sell tickets.”

  “Not helping Ted.” I hissed before turning my attention back to the boys.

  “Kevin, not that I have to explain anything to you, but Lucas and I are traveling together, along with Ted here. We’re all Laboratory Trainers. Lucas, not that I have to explain anything to you as well, but the only reason I know Kevin is that we literally bumped into each other back in Sandgem Town, and he was a jerk.”

  “Hey!”

  “The second thing you ever said to me was to ask me what happened to my face after I’d gotten clawed by a Mightyena”

  Kevin winced and kicked at the ground with his feet. “... I’m sorry for that.”

  Maybe there’s a little bit of hope for him after all.

  “Regardless, Kevin said he’ll drop this whole thing if we have a battle, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

  I gestured towards the training courts. “There’s one free now.”

  “No!” Lucas shouted and stepped forwards, jamming his thumb into his chest. “I’m Alina’s rival! If you want to battle her, you have to get through me!”

  “Fine!” Kevin shouted back. “I’ll take you all on! And I’ll win!”

  The two stomped off towards the battle arena as I put both my hands over my face to muffle my scream.

  /^\

  “This will be a non-official match.” I said, rubbing my temples. “The rules will be held in accordance with Pokémon League regulations. Do I really have to say all of this?”

  “Technically? No, but it does make it a bit more formal.” Ted said from where he was sitting next to me, Silver in his lap and his other Pokémon scattered around him.

  “Ugh. Fine. It is a one-on-one match, with no substitutions or items. Do both of you understand?”

  “What?” Kevin said. “One-on-one? We both have more Pokémon than that!”

  “Yeah!” Lucas chimed in, probably for the first time agreeing with Kevin.

  “You still want to fight me afterwards, right?”

  “Oh. Right.” Kevin coughed. “I’m fine with one-on-one.”

  “I’m not!” said Lucas.

  “You be quiet.” I said, not quite snapping. “You get to battle me all the time.”

  He grumbled, but reluctantly accepted.

  “Are there any other comments or rule changes you would like to make?”

  They both refused to meet my gaze as I glared at them.

  “No? Good. Release your Pokémon.”

  “Go, Hardy!” Lucas called, and the Rampardos erupted onto the field with a deep, challenging roar.

  Kevin’s Pokémon was already being released, but I saw a satisfied smile on his face. “Azure, I choose you!”

  With a flash of red light, an Azumarill was released onto the field, looking around in confusion before its eyes locked onto the Rampardos in front of it.

  I winced. It was an unfortunate matchup in terms of type advantages, the only one of Lucas’ Pokémon that wasn’t weak to Water was his Dartrix, but without any substitutions, it was going to be a rough battle.

  “Trainers ready?” I called weakly.

  “Ready!” Kevin said smugly.

  Lucas seemed to waver for a second, then his confidence came back.

  “Ready!”

  “Last chance to end this.”

  “That’s not what you’re supposed to say!”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Begin!”

  “Hardy! Take Down!”

  “Azure! Belly Drum!”

  I frowned as the Azumarill began beating on its stomach, an almost visible haze of energy surrounding it.

  Competitive Battling wasn’t something that I had spent a lot of time on, either in the old world, or in this one. My eyes glazed over whenever people talked about IVs and EVs, and all of the different strategies. I preferred to play Pokémon casually, but even then, I knew a few things about competitive play.

  Azumarill was a competitive Pokémon due to its chance of having Huge Power, especially if it knew Belly Drum. It did some self-damage, but drastically increased the power of a Pokémon’s moves. Another thing stuck out to me though, something that somebody had said online years ago.

  Azumarill only gets Belly Drum from breeding outside of its evolutionary line - specifically the Poliwag line.

  While cross-breeds did certainly happen in nature, they were also quite rare. If Kevin’s Azumarill was a cross-breed, it was far more likely that he had gotten it from a competitive Pokémon breeder.

  Breeding like that was highly regulated to ensure that Pokémon were being properly taken care of, and competition-grade Pokémon were also very expensive…

  I was so caught up in my thoughts that I missed the first exchange of blows. Hardy had slammed his head into Azure’s stomach, pushing the Aqua Rabbit Pokémon back several feet. Combined with the earlier Belly Drum, it was already looking badly injured.

  Unfortunately for Hardy, that was where the good luck ended.

  “Azure.” Kevin said, and smirked while he crossed his arms. “Aqua Tail.”

  I rolled my eyes, the motion was so smooth that I knew he had practiced it when nobody was watching.

  Still… the attack was horrifically effective. The Azumarill’s tail glowed blue and almost turned translucent, the Water Type Energy flowing through the Pokémon’s body to be concentrated in a single place. Then Azure leapt forwards, twisting its body to get the most leverage out of the blow.

  Hardy tried his best to get out of the way, he really did, but it was a futile effort.

  The Aqua Tail made a glowing blue arc in the air, then slammed down onto Hardy’s back.

  The Rampardos let out something that sounded almost like a squawk, then was driven to the ground. A cloud of dust puffed out into the air from the force of the blow, and when it dissipated with the breeze, Hardy was unconscious on the ground.

  “Challenger Lucas is unable to continue to battle.” I said. “Kevin is the winner.”

  Lucas was grim as he recalled Hardy, then stepped forwards to shake Kevin’s hand.

  Kevin smirked, and magnanimously shook Lucas’ hand. The other boy glowered at Kevin, and I had a feeling that it might turn into an actual fist fight if I didn’t do something first.

  I grimaced, and stepped forwards to take Lucas’ place, drawing their attention away from each other before something else could happen.

  “Ted?” I called. “Would you mind being the referee for this?”

  “Sure.”

  He stepped forwards and coughed.

  “This will be a standard match, held in accordance with League rules, yadda yadda, one Pokémon per Trainer, no subs or items. Understand?”

  Kevin nodded, but I stopped in confusion.

  “What?”

  Ted blinked. “What do you mean ‘what’? Is there a problem with that?”

  “No, I mean, why did you say it so casually?”

  All three of the boys looked at each other in confusion.

  “Because… it’s not an official match?” He said after a second.

  “But I did the full speech because you said it made it more formal!”

  “No, I said that you didn’t have to do it, it’s just an option. Hey, Kevin, do you mind if it’s super formal?”

  “Not really. It’s just a bunch of meaningless words at the end of the day.”

  Ted shrugged. “There you have it. I mean, I can do the full thing if it would make you feel better.”

  “No I… just get it over with.”

  “Alright. If you’re both ready, send ‘em out.”

  I glowered at Ted and his casual tone, but settled on a Pokémon to send out. I hadn’t been battling much with Zetian recently besides the battle at the docks with Kane, and thanks to her bad type advantage I wasn’t going to be sending her out against Candice. I figured she could use some practice against an unfamiliar Pokémon.

  Zetian materialized into existence, and a dull drone filled the air as her wings, as well as the wings of all of her worker bees, began to beat at the air.

  At the same time, a new shape emerged onto the other side of the field. A round, purple body with big eyes and a bigger mouth were flanked by four wings, and the Crobat let out a soft hiss as it appeared.

  I licked my lips. This might be a close fight. Zetian’s Bug-type moves would be weaker against the Crobat, while its Flying-type would give it a leg up.

  “Ready?” Ted asked.

  “I’ll show you who’s strongest!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ready.”

  “Begin!”

  Kōjin - Male Hisuian Growlithe. Joined Alina on the outskirts of Eterna City.

  Kyūdō - Male Dartrix. Joined Lucas in the Grand Underground.