"Lil' Leo, knock it off! Who do you think you are? You actually think you're worthy of challenging Lorelei?"
"Seriously, Leo. You'd better focus on earning eight badges and getting into the Indigo Conference first!"
"Exactly! From what I know, only the champion of the Indigo Conference even has the right to climb Victory Road and challenge the Elite Four."
The crowd was thoroughly unimpressed by Leo's challenge.
This wasn't about winning or losing. It was about whether he was even in the same league.
"Quit your yapping!"
Face flushing red as he listened to his neighbors chatter, Leo turned to Lorelei with a provocative glare. "Lorelei, don't tell me you're actually scared of me now?"
At that, Caster tactically leaned back, studying the reckless kid in front of her with curious eyes.
Did he not know that once Lorelei got into a battle, she became a completely different person?
The title "Ice Queen" wasn't something she'd earned for nothing.
She might not be on the level of the "Pryce of the Midwinter," but she never went easy on anyone either.
Faced with the provocation, Lorelei simply smiled and asked, "Leo, how many badges do you have right now?"
The question immediately sent Leo's face a deeper shade of red.
He had received his starter Pokémon and trained seriously for over half a year, even catching several new partners along the way. But he'd never traveled outside the island, so his badge count was naturally zero.
Still, he'd long since run out of opponents his own age on the Fourth Island, and it was that overconfidence that had driven him here to challenge Lorelei. Embarrassed but unwilling to back down, he stiffened his neck and said flatly, "Badges don't necessarily reflect a trainer's strength, Lorelei."
"You've got a point there!"
Lorelei nodded, catching everyone off guard.
But then she extended a slender, fair finger toward Caster and smiled. "This is Caster. He's also a rookie trainer this year, but he's already earned five badges. If you want to challenge me, you'll have to get through him first."
"Fine, no problem!"
Leo looked Caster up and down, not finding the prospect particularly daunting. "You're Caster, right? You up for a battle? Three-on-three, how about it?"
He'd only been planning to enjoy the show from the sidelines, and somehow he'd been swept right into the center of it all. Caster was a little baffled. But glancing at Lorelei's amused smile, he could only shrug helplessly. "Sure, why not?"
"Then let's go. There's an open area just over there."
Leo waved his arm and led the group to a clearing by the shore.
In the clearing, Caster and Leo stood facing each other while a crowd of kids pressed in around them on all sides.
"Who do you think's going to win?"
"Probably the outsider, right? Didn't you hear what Lorelei said? He's already got five badges. That makes him a five-badge trainer."
"Not necessarily! Leo's really strong too, you know. His Poliwag already evolved into a Poliwhirl. And from what I heard, he once stormed Icefall Cave all by himself, made it out in one piece, and even caught some serious Pokémon in there."
"Oh, come on. Leo's just a frog in a well. How big is the Fourth Island? Compared to all of Kanto, it's a drop in the ocean."
Quite the crowd had gathered, buzzing with commentary and eager to watch the fireworks.
Among them, Lorelei stood with her arms crossed, her chest slightly prominent, watching the scene unfold with keen interest.
"Let's go, Poliwhirl!"
Brimming with confidence, Leo sent out his lead Pokémon first.
"Alright then, I choose you!"
Caster tossed out a Poké Ball. A flash of red light burst open and out came a Slowpoke, its entire body a vivid crimson.
"Hah? A Slowpoke? Seriously?"
Leo burst out laughing the moment he saw it.
Sure, this Slowpoke was a rare shiny, but at the end of the day, it was still just a Slowpoke.
Dopey, sluggish, slow to react. What kind of fighting power could it possibly have?
It was basically a moving target!
"Who is this guy? So annoying."
Slowpoke felt a flicker of irritation at Leo's openly contemptuous look.
"Just some hot-blooded kid who doesn't know their limits." Caster replied through telepathy, chuckling. "This is your first real battle, Slowpoke. Let's make it count, show them what we're made of."
"Got it!"
Slowpoke's gaze sharpened as it gave a firm nod.
Inwardly, though, its thoughts were already running away: "My trainer says I have exceptional talent, but I'm still so young. Not even three months old, just three days out of the egg, really. And that Poliwhirl over there looks like it's already evolved once, so it can't be weak. I need to be careful."
With that thought, the psychic energy in Slowpoke's mind surged outward, coiling into a state of sharp readiness.
Unlike a normal Slowpoke that thought of nothing at all, Caster's Slowpoke was remarkably sharp, so sharp that its mind easily wandered into all kinds of chains of thought and self-constructed scenarios.
"Since you're not moving, I'm not holding back. Poliwhirl, Water Gun, max power!"
Tired of waiting through the silence on Caster and Slowpoke's end, Leo launched the opening attack.
"Hiyah!"
Poliwhirl leapt into the air, its white-gloved hands pressed together, and a powerful jet of water blasted forward from between its palms.
"That Water Gun, both in speed and power, is genuinely impressive. Looks like Leo really has been putting in the work lately."
Lorelei offered her assessment with a smile.
Leo flashed a smug grin at the compliment.
Caster snapped his fingers and called out, "In that case, let's meet it with Water Gun."
He could have communicated through telepathy, but he had no desire to reveal that so casually.
"Nyah~"
On the field, Slowpoke opened its mouth, charged briefly, and spat out a thin, narrow stream of water.
Compared to Poliwhirl's thick, powerful jet, Slowpoke's Water Gun was downright wispy. The contrast couldn't have been more glaring.
Leo burst out laughing. "Ha! That pathetic little trickle? How embarrassing, coming out here to make a fool of yourself with that?"
But his laughter didn't last long.
Crack.
The two streams collided in midair. Every jaw in the crowd had gone slack.
Instead, to everyone's astonishment, the slender stream didn't scatter at all. It sliced straight through Poliwhirl's Water Gun like a hot knife through butter, punching clean through it.
Slowpoke's Water Gun didn't lose a bit of momentum. It drove straight toward Poliwhirl.
"Hiyah!"
Poliwhirl saw it coming and immediately sprang backward. The stream grazed past its body and slammed hard into the rocky shore behind it.
Boom.
The boulder shattered on impact, exploding into a shower of broken stone.
"Hiyah!"
Poliwhirl had dodged the Water Gun, but it couldn't dodge the flying debris. Several jagged pieces scored its body, leaving fresh wounds across its skin.
"What the hell was that? A Water Gun? That much power?"
Everyone's eyes went wide, disbelief written across every face.
Most of them were young, but this was the Pokémon world, and living on an island, Water-type Pokémon and Water Gun were hardly unfamiliar to them.
But a Water Gun with that kind of destructive force, they'd never seen anything like it.
It shattered a boulder?
Absolutely unreal.
"My word, Slowpoke, that Water Gun hits that hard?"
Even Caster couldn't help feeling quietly stunned.
A Mastered Water Gun was far faster than an ordinary Water Gun.
In terms of power, it even surpassed a standard Hydro Pump.
That much, Caster already knew.
The stream was narrow because Slowpoke had been compressing the energy continuously, then releasing it all at the critical moment. The destructive force was naturally immense.
But compared to the same Mastered Water Gun from Dratini, Slowpoke's output was in a completely different class.
"Is it because Slowpoke is a Water-type, so there's a same-type attack bonus?" Caster mused, rubbing his chin. "Actually, the bigger reason is probably that most of Slowpoke's life energy converts into elemental energy. The burst potential is just in another league."
Back on the field.
Leo hadn't thought that deeply about any of it. He simply shot Caster an indignant glare and snapped, "That was a dirty trick, calling Hydro Pump a Water Gun just to throw me off! Poliwhirl, close in and use Double Slap!"
"Hiyah!"
Poliwhirl kipped up to its feet and charged forward, its broad, paddle-like hands slapping out in rapid succession.
Caster responded without urgency. "Disable!"
"Nyah~"
Slowpoke's eyes flickered with a hazy blue glow, and an invisible force descended on the charging Poliwhirl, locking it in place mid-stride and halting every movement.
In the games, Disable prevented an opponent from using the last move it had performed. In the real world, the move did exactly what the name implied: it locked down the target's body and sealed off their ability to act.
"How is this possible?" Leo stared, finally beginning to sense that there was something far from ordinary about this Slowpoke. "How is its reaction speed this fast? It's not slow at all!"
Unfortunately, no one was going to answer him.
"Confusion!"
At Caster's command, psychic energy surged out from Slowpoke's mind and hammered into Poliwhirl's, battering its consciousness in relentless waves.
An ordinary Confusion carried relatively weak psychic force, easy enough to shake off with sufficient physical resilience. But Slowpoke's psychic power was anything but ordinary, fierce and unyielding, giving Poliwhirl no room to break free. The psychic energy steadily drained away at Poliwhirl's strength with every passing second.
"Hiyah~"
Before long, Poliwhirl's eyes rolled back, spiraling into unconsciousness as it collapsed to the ground.
"Damn it! I got careless!"
Leo recalled his defeated Poliwhirl, still unable to grasp the real gap between himself and Caster, and frantically hurled out another Poké Ball.
Caster had kept his telepathy quiet throughout — no reason to show every card at once.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones