"Am I seeing things? That's Lorelei, one of the Elite Four!"
"Oh my god, it really is her! Lorelei, I love you!"
"Why would Lorelei suddenly show up at the Battle Tower? Does that mean someone seriously strong is here today? Wait, hold on! Is that Caster next to her?"
"No way! It's actually him! How did he end up with Lorelei?"
In the lobby of the Battle Tower's ground floor, every pair of eyes locked onto the two arrivals, and a crowd quickly formed around them.
Some people pushed forward asking Lorelei for autographs; others wanted photos, and a few turned on Caster demanding to know what was going on.
"Caster, how did you end up coming here with Lorelei?"
Pierce, who counted himself among Caster's fans, was barely keeping his jealousy in check. The words came out through clenched teeth, each one carefully defused before it could become something embarrassing.
Lorelei was without question the most talented young trainer the island had ever produced.
She had risen to Kanto's Elite Four at a remarkably young age — a distinction that had taken most trainers a lifetime to achieve. More than that, she was strikingly beautiful, and her popularity extended far beyond Kanto to the wider world of Pokémon as a whole.
For the young locals of the Sevii Islands, though, the island's goddess ought to be cherished by one of the island's own sons.
Pierce was a Caster fan, yes, but on a matter as fundamental as this, he stood firmly on the side of island pride.
And yet here was Lorelei, walking in side by side with Caster, laughing and chatting the whole way.
Anyone who didn't know better would have taken them for a couple.
Though, if he was being honest, the two of them were actually a pretty good match in the looks department.
"Lorelei and I are friends. Is there a problem with coming here together?" Caster glanced at Pierce and added with a grin: "I'm going for a full run today. Lorelei came to cheer me on."
"Just friends, okay, okay, that's fine!"
Pierce exhaled with visible relief, then draped an arm around Caster's shoulder and dropped his voice: "Caster, take some advice from the fans. A woman like Lorelei is out of your league. Don't go getting any ideas, you hear me?"
Caster just smiled and said nothing. He gestured to his Phone Rotom to start the stream.
This was the perfect opportunity to pull in viewers for Charmy.
At first, most viewers tuned in thinking it was just another ordinary stream and didn't think much of it. But the moment Lorelei appeared on camera, the chat erupted and the viewer count began climbing at a furious pace.
Word spread quickly, and waves of Lorelei fans poured into the stream, putting a wide grin on Caster's face.
Just then, a sharp-looking middle-aged man strode over from across the lobby and approached Lorelei with a respectful bow: "Elite Four Lorelei, you should have told me you were coming. I haven't had time to prepare anything!"
"Albert, relax. I'm not here in any official capacity." Lorelei smiled and explained: "This is my friend Caster. He's here to challenge the Battle Tower today. I was free at home, so I thought I'd come watch."
Away from the battlefield, Lorelei's presence was warm and unhurried, with none of the imposing air one might expect.
The Battle Tower's director, Albert, visibly relaxed, then turned to look at Caster with a surprised expression. "He's the challenger today?"
If Lorelei said Caster was here for a run, that meant she believed he had a real chance of clearing it. Even if he didn't clear the whole tower, he could at least reach the seventh floor, surely.
But Caster looked so young. At a glance, he could have passed for a brand-new trainer who had only just received his starter Pokémon.
"Caster's going for a full run? Does he actually have a shot?"
Pierce was caught off guard as well.
The Battle Tower was no easy climb.
The rules were straightforward: challengers had to battle their way through each floor's trainers as quickly as possible, pushing toward the top. Pokémon could not rest between floors, and no items could be used to restore their Pokémon's strength.
A Battle Tower run was not merely a test of power. It was a test of endurance, a measure of a challenger's team as a whole.
And Caster's team? He had five Pokémon at the time, not even a full party.
Setting aside Gyarados and Pikachu, the rest were all recent catches. Shellder and Slowpoke in particular were new additions from this very trip to Sevii Islands.
Pierce's gut told him not to count on Caster here.
That said, he had been following Caster long enough to know that the boy had a habit of doing things that should have been impossible. And so his instincts kept swinging back and forth.
"Challenger, please follow me to the arena on the first floor."
A receptionist stepped forward and led Caster toward the arena.
Albert had thought to invite Lorelei to the VIP lounge, since her status hardly seemed suited to standing around in the lobby.
But she shook her head. Clearly, she had no interest in being treated differently from everyone else.
Left with little choice, Albert stayed in the lobby alongside her.
Perhaps because Caster was Lorelei's friend, his run came with a VIP touch, having a receptionist assigned to guide him through every floor.
Before long, Caster arrived at the first-floor arena. His opponent this time was not Ryusei but a different young man — someone who carried himself with a calmer, more composed air.
It made no difference to Caster either way.
"Both challengers, take your positions!"
At the referee's signal, Caster and the floor's defender each released their Pokémon simultaneously.
Caster's lead, as always, was Shellder, tongue lolling out in that harmless-looking pink way it had. But anyone who had actually faced Shellder in battle knew exactly what lay beneath that innocent exterior.
The defender's lead was Dodrio: a creature built much like an ostrich, with its upper legs cloaked in dark feathers, a pink tail trailing behind it, and its whole bearing giving off a distinctly aggressive impression.
"Begin!"
The referee called the match, and it was underway in an instant.
"Shellder, Ice Shard!"
Shellder's mouth filled with a dense, biting cold. The chill compressed rapidly into a sharply pointed spike of ice about the size of a child's forearm and shot forward like an enormous bullet, its speed pushed to the absolute limit.
Dodrio didn't even have time to react before the Ice Shard connected. But this was no ordinary Ice Shard. Beyond its devastating impact, it carried a ferocious wave of cold on contact, and a thick layer of frost crystallized rapidly across Dodrio's body, threatening to lock it in place entirely.
Dodrio thrashed and fought back, all three of its beaks hammering furiously at the encrusting ice, trying to break free.
The next second, a volley of razor-sharp ice spears arrived and buried it completely.
The match began fast and ended faster. From start to finish, it had not lasted ten seconds before the outcome was decided.
"Dodrio is unable to battle. The winner is Shellder!"
In the lobby downstairs, the crowd that had been watching the screen finally snapped out of their daze, and the shock in their eyes was plain to see. The reaction in Caster's livestream chat was much the same.
"What the hell kind of Ice Shard was that?"
"Seriously! The speed alone is insane, but how is the power THIS high? And it inflicts a freeze on top of everything? Is that even legal?"
"Is this some secret Ice Shard technique Lorelei developed? Is this kid her student or something?"
The crowd buzzed with speculation. As impossible as it seemed, the moment they remembered that Caster and Lorelei were "friends," it all somehow became a little easier to accept.
When you had Elite Four connections, things that seemed unreasonable had a way of becoming perfectly reasonable.
Back in the arena, Caster stood with his arms folded, composed and unhurried.
Over the past two weeks of fishing, Caster had drawn enough Ice Shard TMs to push Shellder's Ice Shard proficiency all the way to the top, reaching the Mastered level.
Whatever the move, once it hit Mastered, something fundamental changed about it.
On top of that, Shellder had been steadily absorbing the refined Ice-type energy locked inside the Never-Melt Ice, and the raw power of every Ice-type move had been climbing steadily as a result.
With both enhancements working together, Ice Shard had become what it was now, with that level of power and those effects along with it.
Using it on a first-floor defender was, honestly, a little unsporting.
The defender sent out a second Pokémon shortly after, but the outcome was no different.
One priority Ice Shard, then five consecutive Icicle Spear hits, and Caster moved smoothly on to the second floor.
The second, third, and fourth floors went the same way. Shellder glided through each battle on the same Ice Shard into Icicle Spear combination, moving through the opposition as if they were not there.
One good trick, applied without mercy, was all it ever needed to be.
Even if opponents knew what was coming, that knowledge meant nothing if they lacked the strength to stop it. Blocking the Ice Shard itself was one thing, but there was no blocking the cold that came with it.
The fifth floor's defender was a clear step above the previous four, but all that earned them was one extra round of Icicle Spear. In every way that mattered, there was no real difference.
And just like that, rolling through floor after floor, Shellder had swept ten opponents aside without once leaving the field — and the lobby downstairs had gone very quiet.