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Aside from logging training events, Luther also kept records of his Pokémon's emotional changes.
When Marill grew frustrated at not getting any feedback from her Ice Punch practice, Luther halted the session and instead had her accompany Chansey in training.
Cynthia, who had been carefully reading through his documents, suddenly realized she had stopped in front of a cake shop.
Inside, Luther and Kirlia were browsing. Cynthia slipped her phone into her pocket and walked in.
"Ordering a custom birthday cake now is probably too late, isn't it?"
Cynthia bent down to examine the cakes displayed in the glass case.
"It's not that serious. I just want a bigger cake that tastes good," Luther replied. "Custom cakes? Those are too extravagant. Mai and I are still saving up for our trip. Better to save whenever we can."
While Luther was still hesitating, it was actually Cynthia, usually the one with trouble making choices, who pointed at a fruit cake coated in golden syrup and asked, "How about honey cake?"
Luther glanced over but abandoned the idea after one look at the price tag.
Clicking her tongue, Cynthia handed her own card to the cashier. "We'll take this one. Add another layer of cream and honey, if you can. That's not too difficult, right?"
When the clerk told her to wait a moment, Cynthia took a seat nearby and pulled Luther along.
"Don't worry about the cake anymore. I've already paid. Just take it as my treat. Instead, tell me about this training plan of yours. You seem to place a lot of weight on giving your Pokémon short-term feedback, don't you?"
"Whether it's Kirlia's psychic weightlifting or Espurr's recorded speed of Move release, you make sure to present the results in a clear, visual way. You should know most training doesn't yield results overnight. Short-term data can fluctuate; one day a Pokémon may perform amazingly, another day terribly. But you seem to ignore the dips and only show your Pokémon the good parts."
Luther recalled Kirlia into her Poké Ball before answering. "For me, confidence is the most important thing. Even if you have to trick yourself, you have to be confident."
"Someone lacking confidence won't achieve anything, and Pokémon are the same. Fluctuating data is only temporary. Of course, I know some types of training don't mean much in the short term."
"You probably noticed I faked Jumpluff's adjustment-speed data."
Cynthia opened a file saved on Luther's phone under the training documents folder. The document was simply named "1", carelessly casual.
But this was the real training data.
Chansey's progress was genuine. Kirlia's progress was genuine.
But Jumpluff's posture adjustment data after being struck hadn't changed for half a month.
Espurr's data on move-release attempts had also shown no improvement for the same stretch of time. In fact, later attempts were worse than earlier ones.
And Marill was the strangest case. Tests using Chansey as a "sandbag" showed her Ice Beam and physical strength had both improved. Yet, in another document, Luther had written down "no progress."
"At first, they improve quickly. Then they hit a bottleneck and can hardly move forward, that's how training goes for most Pokémon. Some Trainers break through with sheer effort and by relying on their bond with their Pokémon. I just chose another way."
Cynthia studied the document and murmured, "You've been 'borrowing' their future progress, letting them accumulate confidence that belongs to them."
Luther nodded. "Kirlia's evolution bottleneck made me realize that I could redistribute progress. If they improve too quickly early on, I'll smooth it out in the data, making it look slower. The extra progress I 'withhold' gets added back in later when they're stuck at a plateau."
"Their sense of progress mostly comes from me. Once I've built a complete dataset for them, they depend more on my feedback than on their own vague body-sense."
Cynthia gave him a long, deep look. "So that's why Jumpluff and Espurr can still train with such drive even while stuck in bottlenecks, unlike other Trainers' Pokémon who fall into self-doubt. It's because you've been feeding them false feedback."
Luther chuckled. "Marill's the exception. She improved too fast. When she couldn't get a grip on Ice Punch, I deliberately lowered her expectations to keep her grounded. Otherwise, I was afraid a bigger bottleneck would crush her later."
"And what if the bottleneck turns out to be especially long? What if your data isn't enough to stretch out? Suppose, hypothetically, that your lie gets exposed, how would you deal with it then?"
Cynthia handed the phone back to Luther.
"I believe in them, just as they chose to believe in me. If in the end they encounter a hurdle they absolutely cannot overcome, I will do everything in my power to help them. That is my duty as a Pokémon Trainer."
Cynthia smiled. "You've impressed me. Maybe someone else once made a similar choice, but so far, I haven't seen anyone do it better than you."
"Don't share these things lightly with outsiders. The insights a Pokémon Trainer gains while raising Pokémon are precious treasures. First, you have the ability and experience to put these theories into practice, but that doesn't mean others do. Second, only those who walk their own path are qualified to reach for the Champion's seat. Copying others leads nowhere."
The cake shop staff placed the birthday cake on the table. Luther picked it up, thought for a moment, and said: "I don't consider you an outsider. Besides, I think it's fine to tell you."
"Oh?"
"I have this feeling, you'll take my ideas, refine them, and absorb them into your own training system. Then I'll learn something new from you, take those insights, and continue to improve and develop them further…"
Cynthia let out a small laugh. "So in the end, I'm just a tool for you."
"It's just mutual validation," Luther said.
Back at the hotel, Cynthia was in high spirits. "This trip to Snowpoint City wasn't wasted. The Gym conflict was resolved, and I even witnessed the surprises you brought along. A pity though… if only those two stone slabs had been real."
It was obvious that Cynthia still felt somewhat unsettled about the forgery of the two tablets.
Something came to Luther's mind. He froze for a moment, handed the cake to Cynthia, then dug into his backpack. From between neatly folded clothes, he pulled something out.
Seeing Luther's cautious movements, Cynthia set the cake on a lounge table in the lobby and fixed her gaze on the item in his hands.
When he spread out the cloth, a dull, rainbow-colored feather lay upon it.
"What is this?" Cynthia asked curiously.
"Have you heard the legend of the Burned Tower in Ecruteak City? This is Ho-Oh's feather. I found it near Featherfall Town."
Cynthia's knowledge of myths wasn't limited to the Sinnoh region. Upon hearing this, she immediately recalled the tale of the Burned Tower in Ecruteak City, as well as the legends of fallen feathers she had once heard.
"In the legend, weren't the feathers said to dissolve into pure energy to nourish the earth, disappearing afterward?"
Luther picked up the rainbow feather and smiled. "That's just how people of the time explained it, since they couldn't find the feathers. In truth, once the feathers touched the ground, flocks of Flying-type Pokémon carried them away."
He then told Cynthia the story of the burial mound.
A great tribe that quietly vanished into the river of time, Cynthia couldn't help but sigh at the thought.
"It's a shame. When I first found it, it still glimmered faintly. Now, it has completely faded."
Luther handed the feather to Cynthia.
She was about to say, "It's only natural after so long," but the moment she received it, the feather glowed faintly again. In her palm, it was as though she were holding a circle of light.
(End of Chapter)