Needless to say, no matter what happened, life still had to go on.
Robert's Claydol had fought Meloetta brilliantly, but in the end, it had still knelt before a song.
"Come back, Claydol."
Robert smiled wryly, then recalled his own Claydol, which had fallen into deep sleep and lost all will to fight.
Although Meloetta disliked battling, as one of the pinnacle Mythical Pokémon, she naturally possessed one of the powers she loved most—and one of the most special: mysterious songs imbued with power.
"Thank you, Meloetta."
Dian gently brushed the little girl's cheek with the pad of his finger. It was a little cool and a little silky. His expression suddenly turned strange for a moment as a line from a commercial surfaced in his mind:
"Follow your heart, and everything will be silky smooth."
It had to be said that, if one thought about it carefully, this line seemed to carry some deeper meaning that could and could not be spoken aloud.
He had been too young back then.
"Lai-mei-da."
Meloetta's little musical-note hand grabbed Dian's finger in response. She was evidently a little ticklish too, and only then did she realize that nearly everyone's eyes were fixed on her.
Meloetta, who had never witnessed anything like this, immediately went "poof," and her entire face flushed red.
"Mei-da—!"
She hurriedly concealed her form, but still instinctively felt embarrassed. Thus, with a flash, she darted into a water-blue Luxury Ball she particularly favored. The interior seemed to have been designed in the style of a European garden.
Incidentally, just this Poké Ball had cost one million League Dollars—the equivalent of buying a house.
Putting the materials aside, the scenery inside alone made use of the League's most advanced technology. In other words, it employed the same sort of virtual-reality