New Goals

After the festival ended, Twinleaf Town gradually returned to its usual quiet, as though nothing had happened.

The only difference was the golden commemorative trophy now sitting in Bai Shi's bedroom.

Whenever Bai Shi saw it, he knew everything that had happened was real.

He really had won the Battle Tournament and battled Tower Tycoon Palmer.

"All that time I spent holed up at home training was worth it!"

In high spirits, Bai Shi invited Ash and the others to his house to catch up.

Besides sharing his excitement, he traded tips with them on raising Pokémon.

After their visit, Ash and the others left Twinleaf Town and continued their journeys.

Following Palmer's advice, Ash chose the Gym in Sunyshore City as his next challenge.

Dawn planned to enter the Pokémon Contest in Lilycove Town.

When Barry heard Ash was going to challenge the Sunyshore Gym, he insisted on going there too.

Kuroda, meanwhile, set his sights on the Canalave Gym.

They were all making one last push to qualify for the Lily of the Valley Conference or the Grand Festival.

Now that Ash and the others have left, I should start making plans too.

After seeing them off, Bai Shi began planning his next move.

His battle with Palmer had shown him more clearly than ever how far he still was from the top Pokémon Trainers.

If he stopped moving forward, he would fall behind. To close that gap, he had to keep going.

Besides, Team Galactic remained a potential threat.

Bai Shi could ignore villainous organizations like Team Rocket that wanted to rule the world, so long as he never crossed paths with them.

But he could not turn a blind eye to Team Galactic, which wanted to destroy it.

He had no desire to be relaxing at