"Your ranking has been updated."
Baimu looked away from the Obstagoon sprawled across the arena opposite him.
The colorful display showed a clear number—250.
"What a curious number..."
"What's curious about it?"
The Porygon Phone often struggled to follow its trainer's train of thought. He always made strange connections to things it considered perfectly ordinary.
His way of thinking seemed at odds with the society around him.
The Porygon Phone seriously suspected Arceus had mixed something strange into the recipe when making its trainer.
Baimu didn't answer. He wasn't about to give his Pokémon an opening to tease him.
"Thanks for the effort."
He stroked Shiny Milotic's damp chin.
Lately, he'd been deliberately giving Milotic more battles, using real combat to reinforce everything Wallace had taught them.
"Milo~"
Milotic nuzzled him, then lowered its head toward the phone screen, looking curious too.
Baimu said, "It's just, um... a perfectly ordinary number."
Sigh.
His team was getting harder and harder to manage.
Maybe growing stronger had made them smarter too. Quite a few of his Pokémon now secretly laughed whenever he made a fool of himself!
What a fine example my Trump Card has set!
He thought of the Big Monster that had started it all and ground his teeth.
Of course.
Baimu understood how they felt.
At first, his approach to raising Pokémon had been that of a parent. He took care of everything, and they only had to battle. It was like raising children.
But as his Pokémon matured and grew more independent, that relationship gradually stopped being enough for them.
Aggron was the first to change.
Back when they traveled through Hoenn, Aggron had begun to shift from a child in Baimu's family, to Baimu's closest friend, and finally to his soulmate.
Once that change was complete, Aggron