Baimu didn't interrupt Gladion's family reunion.
He quietly returned to Galar and said goodbye to Hoopa, who was grumpy about being woken in the middle of the night.
He looked up at the sky and breathed out a cloud of white mist.
"Hah..."
Family.
Such a familiar word.
In his previous life, his parents had passed away one after the other. He'd never had the chance to start a family before crossing over.
Luckily, this was the Pokémon World.
He didn't need romance or blood ties. Even if he'd arrived alone, he could still find a warm, sprawling family that made him happy.
And that family was still growing.
He slipped a hand into his pocket and idly turned the shrunken Poké Balls over one by one. The faint loneliness in his heart soon faded.
"Baimu! Was the one you called 'Hoopa' earlier a 'God'?"
Calyrex seemed to have been holding that question in for a while. Unfortunately, it had come to entirely the wrong conclusion.
Surprised by Calyrex's fixation on "God," Baimu had his Porygon Phone display an image of Arceus. "That's a God. Hoopa is my friend, a Mythical Pokémon. Sorry, I forgot to introduce Hoopa properly."
"So that's how it is!"
Calyrex studied Arceus on the screen. Its eyes caught the golden Space-Time Wristband encircling Arceus's body, and it immediately thought of a certain someone's treasured Warp Ring ornament.
The two looked exactly alike.
Calyrex fell into thought.
Baimu walked over to his Hover Motorcycle and glanced at Glastrier, who was waiting patiently beside it. Without thinking, he reached out and stroked the horse's long muzzle.
Glastrier didn't object. Its tail swished from side to side.
"Sorry for the wait," he said softly. "Let's go! Next stop, the Isle of Armor to gather Max Mushrooms. Once we've