Day 32 since returning to the Orange Archipelago. Clear skies.
Today was the fifth round of the knockout stage, the match that would cut the remaining sixteen Trainers down to eight. Reiji already knew who he was facing, and he had spent most of the night going over everything he could find on the man's team.
The information was not encouraging.
His opponent had already revealed three Elite Four-tier Pokémon, including a pseudo-Legendary. That made him, without question, the strongest opponent Reiji had ever faced.
There was no clever way around that fact. Reiji would have to throw everything he had into the match and see how far his team could really go.
"Rai, are you still thinking about your opponent?"
Cissy had been watching him brush his teeth while staring blankly into the mirror for long enough to know his mind was somewhere else. She had seen the draw with him last night, so she knew exactly what he was worried about.
"Yeah." Reiji rinsed his mouth and leaned against the sink. "I'm trying to figure out how two Elite Four-tier Pokémon are supposed to get through three of them."
Yesterday's three-for-one strategy against Shingo would not help much. Anyone facing Reiji now had seen what he was willing to do, and a trick like that became much harder to pull off once the opponent knew to watch for it.
The bigger problem was the third Elite Four-tier Pokémon.
Reiji knew two of them, including the pseudo-Legendary, but the last one had never appeared on-screen. All he could do was work backward from the rest of the team and try to guess what his opponent might be hiding.
"Rai, don't force it."
That was not what Reiji expected to hear from her.
Cissy stepped closer. "If you don't make the top eight, then you don't. Kumquat Gym's Trainer got knocked out too. There'll be other tournaments, so don't destroy yourself and your Pokémon trying to do everything right now."
Reiji turned to look at her. "You're telling me not to make the top eight?"
"Of course I want you to." Cissy's voice softened. "But I couldn't do it myself, so what right do I have to demand that you do it for me? I'm supposed to be the Gym's successor. This should've been my responsibility in the first place."
She wrapped her arms around him from behind before she could get any more embarrassed saying it to his face.
"Thanks for everything you've done."
Her mother had been the one to make her think about it differently. Reiji did not owe their family anything, yet he and his Pokémon had been pushing themselves harder and harder for Mikan Gym while Cissy spent most of her time demanding results from him.
Seeing six of his Pokémon lying in treatment after yesterday's match had finally driven the point home.
She was a Trainer too. She knew what it meant to watch your Pokémon get hurt for something you cared about, and now that both she and her brother were out of the tournament, the entire Gym's hopes had somehow ended up on Reiji's shoulders.
"Hey, it's fine." Reiji turned around and hugged her properly. "This is probably my limit anyway. Once today's match is over, you couldn't make me keep climbing even if you wanted to."
That earned him a small punch in the chest.
"You're so annoying." Cissy caught the grin on his face and immediately pulled away. "Go eat breakfast."
She marched out of the room with as much dignity as she could manage.
Then she opened the door and nearly walked straight into Ash, Misty, Brock, and Tracey.
"Cissy?" Misty looked from her to the room behind her, and a little color crept into her cheeks. She had only come over to wake the three boys, but seeing another girl walk out of a boy's room first thing in the morning made the situation look rather different.
"Oh. Morning."
Cissy suddenly became very interested in getting downstairs as quickly as possible.
Reiji came out a moment later, still pulling on his jacket.
"Morning. You guys heading to breakfast too?"
"Rai!" Cissy shouted from downstairs.
Reiji winced. "Right. Apparently I'm late. See you down there."
He hurried after her before that newly discovered sweet side disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
Brock waited until Reiji was out of sight, then leaned toward the others with the expression of someone who had just uncovered a major conspiracy.
"Did you guys see that? They came out of the same room."
Ash yawned. "You only noticed now? I've seen her come out of his room two or three times."
Brock stared at him.
Tracey looked even more confused by Brock's reaction. "They're together all the time. Rai's the guy everyone's been saying Cissy is dating. You seriously didn't know?"
That finished him.
Somehow Ash, of all people, had noticed before Brock—the self-proclaimed expert on romance who fell in love with a new woman every other day.
Misty, Ash, and Tracey headed downstairs together while Brock remained in the hallway, silently reconsidering every decision that had brought him to this point.
Around the corner, three other people had been listening with considerably more enthusiasm.
"You two heard that too, right?" Jessie whispered. She had discovered gossip, and the mission could wait.
James shook his head. "Don't ask me. Meowth's the one who's been spying on the twerps every night."
Both of them turned toward him.
Meowth slowly lowered the stethoscope he had been holding against the wall.
"Uh... meow?"
The guilty look on his face told Jessie everything she needed to know.
Meowth had been hearing Reiji and Cissy fooling around in his room for days. Sometimes the laughter came from the bed, sometimes from the bathroom, but it had never amounted to anything useful for Team Rocket.
That had not stopped Meowth from showing up every night.
At some point, spying had stopped being work and become entertainment.
"So that's why you've been volunteering every night!" Jessie grabbed him by the neck and started shaking. "You found something interesting and didn't tell us?"
James joined in from the other side. "We're a team, Meowth! You can't keep the good stuff to yourself!"
"Lemme go! I can't breathe, meow!"
Neither listened until Meowth started foaming at the mouth and drooled all over Jessie's hand.
"Eww! Meowth!"
She dropped him immediately and frantically wiped her hand on the nearest thing she could find.
Meowth hit the floor coughing. "You almost strangled me and I'm the disgusting one?!"
He got back up, thoroughly offended now.
"I'm the brains of this operation! Every night you two come back saying you're exhausted. One of you runs off to take a bath, the other sits around counting bottle caps, and who gets stuck doing all the spying? Me! I do all the hard work around here, meow!"
By the time he finished, he was loudly sobbing about how little his teammates appreciated him.
Jessie suddenly found the wall very interesting. She knew perfectly well he had a point.
James handled guilt differently. He dug into his belongings and produced one of the prizes from his collection.
"Meowth, here. This is one of my favorite bottle caps."
Meowth's crying stopped just long enough for his eyes to sharpen.
He reached toward it, caught himself, then pulled his paw back and threw his arms around James instead.
"James! I couldn't possibly take something that precious from you, meow!"
James immediately started crying too.
"Meowth!"
"James!"
Unlike Meowth, James's tears were completely genuine.
Jessie had seen the crafty little grin Meowth tried to hide against James's shoulder, but after nearly choking him unconscious, she decided to let it go.
"Okay, enough! We still need money if we're ever going to catch Pikachu!"
"Coming, meow!"
"Right behind you, Jessie!"
And just like that, Team Rocket's latest civil war ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
Reiji, Cissy, and Ash's group were already long gone by then, completely unaware that Jessie, James, and Meowth had nearly torn their friendship apart over hallway gossip before putting it back together five minutes later.
Some villains really were charming.
In their own ridiculous way.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
[Check out my Patreon to read 20+ chapters ahead]
[[email protected]/BellAshelia]
[Thanks for your support!]