Thirty-Two Magikarp

Chapter 71

Thirty-Two Magikarp

A week after Snowpoint, Gray discovered that normal life had apparently continued without asking whether he was ready for it.

The first evidence was a stack of paperwork occupying most of his desk before eight in the morning. Some of it had accumulated while he was gone: League follow-ups from the protected habitat designation, requests for clarification from two different departments that had apparently interpreted the same paragraph in opposite ways, three regional research permits, a veterinary supply invoice that seemed to have been written by somebody actively hostile to numbers, and a letter from a school in Jubilife asking whether Gray would be willing to record a ten-minute educational segment explaining fossil restoration to twelve-year-olds.

He moved the school request into a separate pile instead of rejecting it, which was as close to enthusiasm as most administrative correspondence received from him.

The rest of the stack was newer. Someone had left a handwritten note on top informing him that the starter appointment scheduled for eleven had already called twice to make sure Gray himself would be conducting it. The note had been underlined once, presumably by whoever had taken the second call.

Gray read that part again, checked the time, and then looked through the office window toward the ranch.

Morning mist still hung low over part of the property, thin enough that the rising sun was beginning to burn through it. The Magikarp pond looked silver from this angle, its surface broken every so often by a lazy ripple that disappeared before Gray could tell which of the thirty-three inhabitants had caused it. Farther out, Bastiodon stood beside one of the stone shelters while Blissey inspected the shoulder that had been strained in Snowpoint. Bastiodon was tolerating the attention with the resigned patience of someone who knew resistance would only make the process longer. Every few seconds he looked toward the lab as though Gray might intervene on his behalf.

Gray did not.

He had checked the shoulder himself less than an hour earlier.

Blissey deserved her turn.

Beyond them, the ranch was settling into morning in layers. One of the habitat gates opened and closed as Marcus crossed between enclosures with a sensor case under one arm. Something large moved behind the greenhouse glass, probably Venusaur shifting toward the early light. A distant metallic scrape suggested Aggron had found something in the mineral enclosure that he considered insufficiently arranged. From the fossil habitat came a low crash followed by several seconds of silence.

Gray looked toward it.

Nothing else happened.

He decided that whatever Dracovish had done could remain unknown for another five minutes.

Chatot was somewhere on the roof.

Gray knew this because an unfamiliar delivery driver had just crossed the yard carrying two boxes and been greeted from above with, “MOVE YOUR ASS, DIPSHIT.”

The delivery driver stopped so abruptly that one of the boxes tilted in his arms. Gray watched the man catch it against his chest, glance upward toward the roof, and then look around the yard as if trying to determine whether he had genuinely just been insulted by a Pokémon before eight in the morning.

Gray closed his eyes.

A second voice drifted faintly through the open office window. “That means hello.”

Lyra.

There was a pause outside, followed by a question from the driver that Gray could not quite make out. Whatever he asked, Lyra answered with the patient tone of someone who had already been forced to explain Chatot to strangers more than once.

“No, he does not mean it personally.”

From somewhere above them, Chatot shouted something substantially less helpful.

Gray considered getting up. He could go outside, apologize, locate Chatot, explain once again that profanity was not an appropriate greeting for delivery personnel, and probably spend several minutes negotiating the surrender of whatever small object Chatot had stolen while nobody was looking.

Instead, he returned to the League document.

Lyra had the situation under control. More importantly, going outside would establish the dangerous precedent that shouting obscenities from the roof was an effective way to summon Gray.

He had nearly finished the first page of the follow-up when something tapped against his office window.

Gray ignored it initially, assuming Chatot had relocated.

The tapping came again.

He looked up and found Roark standing outside.

Apparently, Roark had ignored the perfectly functional front entrance, walked around the side of the building, and decided the most reasonable way to announce himself was through a pane of glass. Gray stared at him for several seconds, waiting to see whether embarrassment might eventually occur naturally.

It did not.

Roark grinned and raised a paper bag in one hand, giving it a small shake as though breakfast excused whatever this was.

Gray pointed toward the door.

Roark frowned theatrically, cupped one hand around his ear, and leaned closer to the window as though the glass had somehow prevented him from understanding an extremely straightforward gesture.

Gray pointed toward the door again.

Roark responded with a helpless shrug.

For several seconds, Gray seriously considered leaving him outside. It was cold enough that the lesson might even have been educational.

The office door opened thirty seconds later anyway, and Roark came in looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“You know there is an entrance,” Gray said, keeping his attention on the document in front of him.

“I used one.”

Gray looked up. “The window is not an entrance.”

“I didn't come through the window.”

“You announced yourself through it.”

Roark shut the door behind him and approached the desk as though this distinction had settled the matter in his favor. “That seems substantially different.”

“It isn't.”

“I entered through the door.”

“After standing outside my window.”

“Which proves I know where the door is.”

Gray stared at him.

Roark smiled.

Gray decided there was no version of this conversation in which he came out ahead and returned to his paperwork.

Roark set the paper bag on the only section of Gray’s desk not already buried beneath League paperwork, then looked over the rest of the surface with open disapproval.

“I brought breakfast.”

“I ate.”

Roark’s gaze moved slowly around the office.

There was no plate.

No wrapper.

No cup except the coffee Gray had been reheating through increasingly questionable means since shortly after six.

Gray frowned. “Earlier.”

“What?”

Gray ignored him and opened the bag.

There were two pastries inside, still faintly warm. Roark smiled in the deeply irritating way of someone whose point had just been proven without requiring any effort on his part, and Gray responded by taking one of the pastries immediately.

“Traitor.”

“You’re welcome.”

Roark dropped into the chair opposite the desk and leaned back until it creaked in protest. He had dressed more casually than he usually did at the Gym, though he still wore the same boots he took underground often enough that the leather carried permanent pale scuffs from stone dust. His jacket had been left open despite the morning cold, and a faint dusting of snow was melting into the fabric along one shoulder.

He looked past Gray toward the window. “How’s Bastiodon?”

“Fine.”

Roark’s eyes shifted back to him. “Actually fine?”

Gray stopped chewing.

Roark’s smile widened.

“I hate all of you.”

“I wasn’t there when Candice started that.”

“You encouraged her somehow.”

“Probably.”

Gray glanced outside again. Bastiodon had finally escaped Blissey’s inspection and was moving toward the feeding area, shoulder working normally beneath the heavy armor. The Pokémon Center in Snowpoint had cleared him several days ago, and Gray had checked the joint every morning since returning despite possessing more than enough professional training to know he was being ridiculous.

He had also checked it every evening.

That part seemed less defensible.

“He’s fine,” Gray said more seriously. “The strain is gone. No tenderness under the plate anymore. His range of motion is normal.”

“And Absol?”

“Also fine. His coat looks terrible where the burn was, but the skin healed cleanly. No rib tenderness. He’s stopped limping.”

Roark nodded, and some of the humor eased from his face. He had already heard the full version of what happened in Snowpoint, including the part where Hunter J fired at Gray and Absol took the shot. Gray had delivered most of that story by phone two nights after returning, partly because Roark had called three times and partly because Gray knew that if he did not explain it himself, Roark would eventually get some distorted League summary full of phrases like high-risk engagement and incident involving confiscated machinery.

Roark had been unusually silent during several parts of the story.

Especially the machine.

He looked toward the ranch again now, quiet for a few seconds before asking, “And you?”

Gray took another bite of the pastry and devoted considerably more attention to chewing than the question required.

Roark waited.

Gray kept chewing.

Roark sighed. “Never mind.”

“Good decision.”

“I came here for a peaceful day.”

“That was your first mistake.”

“I also brought Cranidos.”

That got Gray’s attention immediately.

Roark leaned toward the window and pointed farther down the yard. A young Cranidos stood near the fence outside the lab, studying one of the posts with such intense concentration that Gray immediately suspected the post was about to become involved in something it had not agreed to. The Cranidos shifted his weight backward, lowered his head slightly, and stared at the wood with the solemn focus of a researcher preparing a controlled experiment.

Gray watched him for another second.

“Your youngest?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“How young?”

“Old enough that I’m no longer worried he’ll Headbutt a wall just because the wall exists.”

Gray looked back through the window.

Cranidos lowered his head another inch.

Roark followed his gaze and watched the movement in silence for a moment. “Usually.”

Gray turned to him.

Roark held up one hand. “It’s developmental.”

“That’s not what developmental means.”

“It means he’s developing opinions about what deserves to be hit.”

“That is worse.”

Outside, Cranidos took one experimental step toward the fence post, paused, and then shifted his weight forward with increasing commitment.

Roark leaned across the desk and tapped two fingers sharply against the window.

Cranidos looked up at once.

The moment he saw Roark, he straightened, abandoned whatever structural test he had been considering, and began nosing at the snow as though the fence had never interested him in the first place.

Gray raised an eyebrow.

Roark shrugged. “See? Growth.”

“You interrupted him.”

“Still counts.”

He reached into the paper bag and took the second pastry before Gray had decided whether he wanted to save it for later. Gray watched this happen with mild offense, but Roark had already bitten into it.

“I thought Dracovish might enjoy a practice match,” he said around the first mouthful.

Gray looked past Cranidos toward the fossil habitat.

Dracovish was not immediately visible.

That could mean several things, and none of them were especially reassuring.

He might have been asleep somewhere unreasonable, which had happened before. He might have found one of the enrichment structures interesting enough to attempt moving it. He might simply have discovered a new patch of mud and decided it required his entire body.

The crash Gray had heard earlier suddenly felt more relevant.

“He probably would.”

Roark paused with the pastry halfway to his mouth. “That sounded ominous.”

“He thinks wrestling is a greeting.”

“Cranidos thinks head trauma is recreation.”

Gray considered the pairing again.

Dracovish needed exactly this kind of practice. Not a real battle, not something competitive enough that Gray would have to worry about performance, and not another round of him enthusiastically charging at something until someone physically redirected him. He needed time around another Pokémon who understood the structure of a training match: when to press, when to back off, when a command meant stop rather than attack differently.

Cranidos was young enough that Roark would not turn the session into a test of strength, but experienced enough to give Dracovish something more organized than roughhousing.

More importantly, Gray trusted Roark.

That mattered more than the matchup.

He trusted him to call the practice off the instant either Pokémon stopped enjoying it, and to treat Dracovish like a Pokémon learning how to battle rather than a novelty built from incompatible fossils.

Outside, Cranidos had begun pawing at the snow near the fence, apparently searching for a second project.

From somewhere behind the fossil habitat came a low scraping sound, followed by the unmistakable noise Dracovish made when he was extremely pleased with himself.

Gray looked toward the enclosure.

Roark looked too.

Neither of them moved for a second.

Gray sighed.

“Fine.”

They held the practice match on one of the training fields behind the main ranch buildings, far enough from the fossil habitats that Aerodactyl would not immediately decide the activity concerned him.

That precaution failed before they had even finished taking positions.

Aerodactyl appeared on top of the nearest outbuilding with his wings folded tightly against his sides and his head angled downward in obvious judgment. He had landed so quietly that Gray only noticed when Roark glanced up.

Gray followed his gaze.

“No.”

Aerodactyl opened his mouth.

“No.”

The fossil Pokémon produced a long, irritated rasp that conveyed several opinions Gray had no intention of entertaining.

Roark looked between them. “Did you just win an argument with an Aerodactyl?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“He postponed it.”

Roark nodded. “That sounds more accurate.”

Dracovish arrived at a run before Aerodactyl could offer a rebuttal.

Gray heard him before he saw him, mostly because Dracovish had never learned that his body produced an extraordinary amount of noise when moving at speed. There was a heavy, irregular pounding from behind the habitat fence, followed by the scrape of claws on packed ground and something that sounded suspiciously like a wooden enrichment block being kicked out of the way.

Then Dracovish came around the side of the enclosure with his head high and his tail working frantically behind him.

He spotted Gray.

His entire posture brightened.

He accelerated.

Gray stepped sideways with the practiced timing of someone who had already learned exactly how much distance was required.

Dracovish missed him by a comfortable margin and continued another five meters before apparently realizing the greeting had failed. His momentum carried him into an awkward half-turn that required several extra steps to correct, and then he came charging back with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm.

Gray caught him this time by planting one hand against the side of his head before Dracovish could attempt another pass.

“Hello.”

Dracovish opened his mouth happily.

“Yes. Hello.”

Roark had crouched beside Cranidos, who was staring at Dracovish with complete fascination.

The fascination appeared mutual.

Dracovish leaned forward.

Cranidos leaned forward.

Gray watched the distance between their skulls decrease by several inches.

“No.”

Both Pokémon stopped.

Roark laughed. “They haven’t even started.”

“Exactly.”

The practice match was supposed to be simple.

Gray explained this twice.

No full-force biting. No targeting vulnerable areas. Stop on command. The goal was movement, instruction response, and learning how to work around another Pokémon without treating every encounter like an emergency or an opportunity to enthusiastically put something in his mouth.

Dracovish listened with his entire face.

His eyes stayed on Gray. His head tilted slightly at certain words. He made one soft, interested noise when Gray said stop.

Gray had absolutely no idea how much of the explanation survived.

Roark, meanwhile, walked Cranidos to the opposite side of the field and crouched briefly to say something Gray could not hear. Cranidos gave a sharp little nod and bounced once on his feet before Roark stood and gave Gray a thumbs-up.

Gray turned back to Dracovish.

“Ready?”

Dracovish bounced once on his forelimbs.

Close enough.

“Start.”

Cranidos moved first.

That alone created a problem.

Dracovish had apparently expected the beginning of the match to involve more ceremony, or at least a more obvious declaration of intent. When Cranidos darted sideways instead of charging directly, Dracovish followed him with his head while the rest of his body remained pointed somewhere else.

His hindquarters caught up a moment later in an awkward pivot that nearly sent him into the boundary marker.

Roark called, “Circle!”

Cranidos obeyed immediately, curving around Dracovish at a quick, controlled pace.

Gray watched Dracovish attempt to track him and saw the problem almost immediately.

It was not speed.

Dracovish had plenty of that.

It was organization.

His front end responded first to almost everything. His head and shoulders committed to a direction, then the rest of his body followed after a fractional delay that barely mattered in a straight line and became painfully obvious when he had to turn under pressure. Cranidos, smaller and more experienced, could exploit that delay without even trying very hard.

“Don’t follow his head,” Gray called. “Follow his body.”

Dracovish looked at him.

That was enough.

Cranidos used the distraction instantly.

“Headbutt!”

The younger fossil Pokémon accelerated across the field and struck Dracovish cleanly in the side.

The impact produced a solid thump.

Cranidos bounced backward, landed neatly, and looked extraordinarily pleased with himself.

Dracovish stood motionless.

Gray waited.

Dracovish slowly turned his head toward Cranidos.

Something changed in his expression.

Roark saw it at the same time.

“Oh no.”

Dracovish became delighted.

Apparently they were hitting each other now.

He charged.

“Easy!”

Gray’s command changed the movement just enough. Dracovish still crossed the distance with alarming speed, but the final impact became a heavy shove rather than the full-body collision he had clearly been planning.

Cranidos skidded backward through the grass, claws digging furrows before he regained his footing.

Roark whistled.

Cranidos shook himself once and immediately lowered his head again, clearly wanting more.

Gray rubbed his forehead. “This was a mistake.”

Roark looked delighted. “This is incredible.”

“It has been forty seconds.”

“Best forty seconds of my week.”

Cranidos tried circling again.

This time Dracovish handled it better.

Not well, exactly.

But better.

Gray kept his commands simple. Turn earlier. Plant before changing direction. Do not chase every feint. Stop trying to solve positioning by accelerating harder.

That last one required repetition.

Several times.

Roark’s Cranidos had the opposite advantage. He understood practice battles. He knew when to disengage, when to test distance, and when Roark wanted him to repeat something rather than win an exchange. He lacked Dracovish’s raw strength, but he had enough training to make the difference matter.

For several minutes, Cranidos controlled the match.

He slipped around Dracovish’s turns, tested the edges of his reach, and learned quickly that direct collisions were a poor idea unless Roark specifically asked for one. Dracovish kept trying to compensate with enthusiasm, which was useful only in the broadest possible sense.

Then he started learning.

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Not elegantly.

But visibly.

Cranidos feinted left for the third time.

Dracovish started to follow.

Then stopped.

Gray felt his attention sharpen.

Cranidos reversed toward the right.

Dracovish waited just long enough to catch the real movement and turned before Cranidos completed the shift.

Roark’s eyebrows lifted.

Gray smiled.

“Good.”

Dracovish heard him.

Dracovish looked over.

Cranidos Headbutted him.

Gray stopped smiling.

Roark laughed hard enough that he had to repeat his next command.

“You distracted him!”

“I praised him.”

“You distracted him with praise.”

“That is not supposed to be a tactical weakness.”

“Apparently it is.”

The match continued until Dracovish finally managed to catch Cranidos during a charge.

Gray saw the opening develop a fraction too late.

Cranidos committed forward.

Instead of meeting him head-on, Dracovish shifted sideways at the last moment, hooked his body around the smaller Pokémon’s path, and caught him against the heavier portion of his chest.

For one second, Gray was impressed.

It was the cleanest adjustment Dracovish had made all morning.

Then Dracovish began turning with Cranidos still trapped against him.

“Stop.”

Dracovish stopped immediately.

Cranidos blinked.

Roark raised one hand. “Good there.”

Gray was already moving.

He reached them before either Pokémon could decide the match had merely paused instead of ended. Cranidos backed away, shook himself once, and looked entirely uninjured, though slightly confused by the abrupt conclusion.

Dracovish stared after him, breathing hard and clearly wondering why everyone had stopped having fun.

Roark crouched beside Cranidos and ran both hands over his shoulders and chest, checking for soreness. Gray did the same with Dracovish, pressing carefully along the side Cranidos had struck earlier.

“Nothing sore?”

Dracovish tried to lick his sleeve.

Gray pulled his arm back.

“I’ll take that as no.”

Roark stood and looked Dracovish over with renewed interest. “He’s going to be terrifying when he figures out what he’s doing.”

Gray watched Dracovish walk directly to the communal water trough, lower his head too far, and put one forefoot inside it.

“Yes.”

Cranidos joined him.

Within thirty seconds, both Pokémon were drinking peacefully beside one another as if they had not spent the previous twenty minutes enthusiastically hitting each other.

Roark folded his arms and watched them.

“Fossil Pokémon are weird.”

Gray looked at him.

“You are the Oreburgh Gym Leader.”

“That doesn’t make them less weird.”

Aerodactyl screamed from the roof.

Roark looked up.

Gray did not.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“He knows.”

The starter appointment arrived at eleven twelve.

Gray knew this because the boy apologized for being twelve minutes late in a tone suggesting Gray should be impressed that he had apologized at all.

His name was Julian. He was ten years old, wore a coat that probably cost more than several pieces of Gray’s field equipment, and had arrived with both parents plus an expression of carefully maintained disappointment at everything he saw. He had looked at the reception area that way. He had looked at the ranch map that way. He had looked at the fossil display in the hall with the faint reserve of someone evaluating whether it was impressive enough to deserve his attention.

Gray recognized the type almost immediately.

Academy preparation, almost certainly. Years of theoretical battle study. Too many trainer interviews watched in advance. Probably several guidebooks with sections highlighted according to type matchups and recommended first-partner progression.

Probably a spreadsheet.

None of that was necessarily a problem. Gray had met children who could recite half a regional Pokédex and still knew how to listen when they encountered something they did not understand.

Julian had not yet demonstrated the second part.

The boy sat across from Gray’s desk with his parents positioned on either side of him and placed a folder carefully between them. It was thick enough to suggest someone had taken the starter-selection process with considerable seriousness.

“I submitted my preferences three months ago.”

“I know.”

“I ranked six species.”

“I read them.”

Julian waited.

Gray waited back.

The silence stretched just long enough for Julian’s mother to glance at her son and then at Gray, perhaps anticipating that one of them would eventually decide to make this easier.

Neither did.

Julian eventually asked, “Did you have difficulty obtaining them?”

“No.”

That was not the answer he had expected.

His mother shifted slightly beside him. His father, who had so far contributed nothing, suddenly found something very interesting about the bookshelf to Gray’s left.

Julian frowned. “Then which one did I get?”

Gray leaned back in his chair and studied him for another moment.

The boy was trying very hard to look composed. Gray could see the impatience underneath it, though, along with the certainty that this appointment was about confirming a choice already made rather than discovering whether the choice had actually been appropriate.

That was fine.

It would make the next thirty seconds educational.

Gray looked toward the side door.

“Come in.”

There was a rustle from the adjoining room, followed by the soft scrape of feet against the floor.

Julian straightened.

His mother looked over.

His father finally abandoned the bookshelf.

Then Cacnea appeared.

The small Grass-type walked into the office with both arms slightly raised, saw Julian, and stopped.

For a few seconds, neither of them moved. Julian stared at Cacnea with the kind of expression that suggested he was waiting for somebody to explain the mistake, while Cacnea stared back with open, uncomplicated interest. Gray had supervised enough starter meetings to recognize the silence that formed when expectations collided with reality and both sides began forming opinions at exactly the same time.

Julian looked at Gray first. “That’s a Cacnea.”

“Yes.”

“I requested Riolu, Treecko, Charmander, Ralts, Shinx, or Bagon.”

“I remember.”

“You gave me Cacnea.”

“I noticed.”

Julian’s mother closed her eyes briefly. His father shifted in his chair and became intensely interested in a point somewhere near Gray’s bookshelf.

Gray leaned back and folded his hands over his stomach. “Do you want to meet him or complain about the list first?”

Julian looked scandalized enough that Gray almost regretted phrasing it that way.

Almost.

From just outside the open office door came a suspicious coughing sound. Roark had been told explicitly that he was not sitting in on the appointment, which apparently meant he had decided to stand just outside the room and eavesdrop with the subtlety of a Geodude rolling down stairs.

Gray ignored him.

Julian turned his attention back to Cacnea. The Grass-type still had not moved, though his body had angled slightly toward the boy.

“What does he know?” Julian asked.

“That is not the first question.”

Julian frowned. “What should I ask?”

“Maybe hello.”

The boy considered this as though Gray had proposed an unusual tactical drill.

Then he slid out of the chair and crouched several feet from Cacnea, careful and stiff and obviously determined to conduct the interaction correctly.

“Hello.”

Cacnea launched himself at his face.

Julian screamed. His mother shot to her feet so quickly the chair scraped backward across the floor, and his father swore under his breath. Somewhere in the hallway, Roark made a strangled noise and vanished from the doorway because he was laughing too hard to remain visible.

Gray was already moving. He crossed the office, caught Cacnea carefully around the body, and began detaching him from Julian without driving any of the spines in farther than they already were. Cacnea resisted only in the sense that he was extremely enthusiastic about the interaction and saw no reason whatsoever for it to end.

After several seconds, Gray finally got him loose.

Julian sat on the floor with his hair disordered and every trace of practiced composure gone. “What was that?”

“Affection.”

“He stabbed me!”

“He has spines.”

“I know he has spines!”

“Then technically that part should not have surprised you.”

“Professor,” Julian’s mother said.

Gray looked at her.

She pressed her lips together and apparently decided not to pursue whatever response had first come to mind.

Cacnea wriggled in Gray’s arms, trying to turn back toward Julian again.

Gray tightened his hold slightly. “No.”

Cacnea stopped.

“Greeting rules.”

The Pokémon looked up at him.

“No face.”

Cacnea immediately looked toward Julian.

Gray narrowed his eyes. “You understand.”

Cacnea made a small sound that did not contain even the suggestion of remorse.

Gray set him down.

Julian had gotten back to his feet, but he had also put the desk between himself and the Pokémon.

“Will he do that again?”

“Probably.”

Cacnea bolted around the desk.

Julian barely had time to turn before the Grass-type jumped and attached himself to his face for a second time.

The noise Roark made from the hallway sounded physically painful.

Gray pulled Cacnea loose again and held him at arm’s length.

“We just discussed this.”

Cacnea looked completely unrepentant.

Julian’s hair had been flattened on one side now, and he stood there breathing hard with the look of someone discovering that theoretical preparation had failed to cover an important category of problem.

“I don’t want this one.”

The humor left Gray’s expression.

He crouched so he was closer to Julian’s height, still holding Cacnea securely against his chest.

“That’s allowed.”

The room quieted immediately.

Julian looked at him, some of the anger draining out of his face.

Gray continued in a calmer tone. “You are not required to accept a Pokémon you do not want. He is also not required to leave with you. Starter matching works both ways.”

That seemed to catch the boy off guard more than anything else had.

“You’d give me another one?”

“I’d restart the process.”

“How long?”

“Could be weeks. Could be months.”

Julian frowned and looked toward Cacnea again.

Gray set the Grass-type down beside his own chair this time. Cacnea stayed there, arms slightly raised, watching Julian but making no attempt to move.

“For what it’s worth,” Gray said, “he likes you.”

Julian looked deeply suspicious of that information. “He attacked my face.”

“Yes.”

“Twice.”

“Yes.”

“That’s liking me?”

“Cacnea are tactile.”

Julian stared at him. “That is a horrifying sentence.”

Gray almost smiled.

For the first time since entering the office, Julian looked less like a child performing competence and more like what he actually was: ten years old, uncertain, embarrassed, and trying to understand a Pokémon he had not planned for.

He stepped around the desk slowly.

Cacnea watched him.

No jumping this time.

Julian crouched more carefully than before. “Why him?”

That was a better question.

Gray folded his arms. “Because you have excellent theoretical preparation and almost no tolerance for situations that do not behave according to the plan you wrote beforehand.”

Julian’s father found the floor very interesting.

Gray continued before the boy could object. “Cacnea is intelligent, confident, adaptable, and social. He is also going to require you to pay attention to what he actually does instead of what your books say he should do.”

Julian looked at Cacnea for a long moment. “I wanted something good at battling.”

“He can battle.”

“Against Riolu?”

“Potentially.”

“Bagon?”

“Yes.”

Julian sounded doubtful. “Really?”

Gray raised an eyebrow. “Pokémon battles are not conducted by comparing species names until one sounds cooler.”

There was another muffled sound from the hallway.

Gray raised his voice without looking toward the door. “Leave.”

Footsteps retreated.

Julian reached one hand slowly toward Cacnea.

The Grass-type leaned forward.

Gray braced himself.

Cacnea did not jump.

Instead, he pressed his face briefly against the boy’s palm.

Julian froze.

Then his expression changed, only slightly, but enough that Gray noticed. Something in his posture loosened. For the first time, he stopped looking at Cacnea like a mistake on a form and started looking at him like a Pokémon.

Cacnea shifted his weight, and Julian’s eyes caught on one of the smaller spines along his side.

“Is that supposed to look like that?”

Gray glanced down. “What?”

“That one.”

Julian pointed carefully instead of touching.

Gray leaned closer. “Old bend. Doesn’t bother him.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

Julian nodded.

The question had come too quickly to be performative.

Gray sat back.

Cacnea jumped onto Julian’s face again.

The boy made a muffled noise of absolute betrayal. His mother covered her mouth, whether to hide a laugh or a sigh Gray could not tell.

Gray removed Cacnea for the third time and held him away from Julian.

“We are making progress.”

Julian glared at him.

Cacnea looked ecstatic.

Twenty minutes later, Julian left the lab carrying his starter at arm’s length with both hands. Cacnea twisted around in his grip and waved enthusiastically at Gray.

Julian immediately adjusted how he was holding him. “No face.”

Cacnea turned toward him.

Julian narrowed his eyes. “Don’t.”

The door closed behind them.

Roark appeared from around the corner and leaned against the wall, already grinning.

He lasted three seconds before he started laughing again.

Gray walked back into the office and sat down behind his desk.

“That was irresponsible.”

Roark braced one hand against the doorframe. “You gave the snobbiest ten-year-old I’ve ever met a cactus that loves hugs.”

“He asked whether the bent spine hurt.”

That stopped him.

The laughter faded from Roark’s face as he glanced toward the closed door.

Gray picked up the next piece of paperwork.

“He’ll be fine.”

Roark looked back at him and smiled. “You like the kid.”

“I approved him.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Gray picked up the next piece of paperwork.

Roark wisely left.

Cynthia called at two fourteen.

Gray knew the exact time because he had just begun the second page of a funding authorization and had spent the previous several minutes considering whether intentionally losing the document could qualify as an administrative solution. It probably could not. More importantly, Lyra would know immediately that he had done it, which removed most of the practical benefit.

His phone began vibrating beside the paperwork. Gray picked it up without looking at the screen and wedged it between his shoulder and ear while continuing to write.

“Hello.”

“Are you busy?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Gray stopped writing.

There was enough satisfaction in Cynthia’s answer to make him suspicious, but it was the noise behind her that actually made him lower the pen. Voices murmured somewhere beyond the phone, more than one of them, accompanied by the occasional shift of paper and the scrape of furniture against a hard floor. This was not background noise from an office corridor. These were room noises, the contained sounds of multiple people trying to accomplish something together.

Someone coughed in the distance.

A stack of paper shifted.

A chair scraped.

Gray slowly set his pen down. “Where are you?”

“My office.”

Before he could answer, a distant voice came clearly through the phone.

“Champion, if we could return to the regional transport allocation—”

Gray closed his eyes.

“You are in a meeting.”

“No.”

There was a pause.

Gray waited.

Cynthia apparently reconsidered the degree to which that answer could survive contact with evidence. “I am temporarily near a meeting.”

“You are speaking in the meeting.”

“That is geographically consistent with what I said.”

Gray leaned back in his chair and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The funding authorization sat unfinished in front of him, suddenly looking like the more responsible use of his time, which was impressive considering he had been contemplating its disappearance less than a minute ago.

“Why did you call me?”

“I had a question about the Snowpoint report.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“What question?”

Silence came from Cynthia’s end.

The meeting continued faintly behind her. Someone was speaking about projected expenditures now, though not loudly enough for Gray to make out the specifics. Cynthia offered no question.

Gray waited.

Finally she said, “How is Dracovish?”

Gray stared at the phone as though she might somehow be able to see his expression through it.

“That is not in the Snowpoint report.”

“I became curious after opening your contact information.”

“You are bored.”

“I am attending to several responsibilities simultaneously.”

“That is an unnecessarily elaborate way to say bored.”

“It is also more accurate.”

In the background, somebody began talking about transport appropriations. Gray could hear enough individual words now to confirm that Cynthia was not merely near a meeting unless the definition of near had recently expanded to include sitting directly inside one while being addressed by title.

“One moment,” Cynthia said.

The phone shifted against something, muffling the room for a second. When her voice returned, the lazy amusement had disappeared so completely that Gray almost checked whether the call had somehow transferred to someone else.

“The western allocation should remain unchanged until the winter usage report is corrected. The current projection includes last year’s emergency charter traffic as ordinary volume, which inflates the baseline by approximately eleven percent. Separate those categories before bringing the proposal back, otherwise we’re comparing two different kinds of demand and pretending they represent the same thing.”

There was a brief silence from the meeting.

Someone said, “Understood.”

Gray stared at the unfinished funding form on his desk.

The phone shifted again, and Cynthia returned to the conversation in exactly the same tone she had been using before.

“You were saying?”

Gray stared at nothing for a moment after Cynthia’s tone shifted back to casual.

“That was irritating.”

“What?”

“You were listening.”

“I can do two things.”

“I dislike that.”

There was a faint smile in Cynthia’s voice when she said, “Dracovish?”

Gray picked up his pen again and tried to pretend the funding authorization deserved his attention. “He had a practice battle with Roark’s youngest Cranidos.”

“How did that go?”

“He learned that being hit means the other Pokémon would probably prefer not to be immediately tackled through a fence.”

“That sounds useful.”

“He only almost tackled him through the fence.”

“Improvement.”

Gray signed one line, moved to the next section, and was halfway through reading a paragraph about expenditure categories when another voice from Cynthia’s side of the call caught his attention.

His name.

He stopped.

“Did someone just say Professor Linden?”

“No.”

Gray leaned back slowly. “Cynthia.”

A muffled conversation followed. He could hear Cynthia say something away from the phone, followed by the rustle of papers and another voice answering too quietly for him to make out.

When she came back, she sounded entirely unbothered. “They are discussing the protected habitat designation.”

Gray stared at the phone. “You are on the phone with the person who wrote half of it while they discuss it?”

“Apparently.”

“Hang up.”

“No.”

“You are the Champion.”

“Yes.”

“You are currently being paid to participate in that meeting.”

“Technically I am salaried.”

Gray lowered the pen again. “That is worse.”

Cynthia laughed quietly.

He shook his head and returned to the form, finally signing the authorization with more force than necessary. For several seconds, neither of them said anything. Gray could hear the meeting continuing in the background, Cynthia apparently still following it despite making no effort to sound like she was.

Then she asked, “How is Bastiodon?”

“Fine.”

“Absol?”

“Fine.”

A shorter pause this time.

“You?”

Gray considered lying.

“Also fine.”

The silence that followed lasted just long enough for him to know she did not believe him.

He kept writing anyway.

Cynthia let it go, which Gray appreciated more than he intended to admit. Instead, a moment later, her tone shifted.

“Did you really give a new trainer a Cacnea this morning?”

Gray stopped.

“How do you know that?”

“Roark messaged me.”

“Traitor.”

“He included a photograph.”

Gray’s eyes narrowed.

“I am going to kill him.”

“No,” Cynthia said, sounding far too entertained. “Apparently Cacnea is doing that.”

“He likes the boy.”

“I could tell.”

“How?”

“He was attached to his face.”

Gray dropped the pen.

Cynthia laughed.

From somewhere in the meeting, a voice said, “Champion?”

She answered immediately, formal again. “Yes?”

There was a pause.

Then the same voice asked, with considerably more caution, “Are you on a personal call?”

Cynthia considered this for a beat.

Gray waited.

“No.”

He hung up.

The phone rang again four seconds later.

Gray looked at the screen.

Cynthia.

He declined it.

A message arrived almost immediately.

Coward.

Gray stared at it, then turned the phone facedown on the desk.

From somewhere above the office door, Chatot said, “COWARD.”

Gray looked up.

Chatot sat on top of the frame, feathers puffed slightly, watching him with bright interest.

“I’m going to cook you.”

Chatot fluffed himself even more.

“BULLSHIT.”

Gray stared at him for another second, then looked back down at the paperwork.

The funding authorization was still there.

Unfortunately, so was the rest of the stack.

Roark reappeared sometime after three carrying two bottles of water and announced, with the confidence of someone who had already made the decision for both of them, that Gray had spent enough time indoors.

Gray disagreed.

Roark opened the office door anyway.

Gray continued disagreeing while standing up, which weakened the argument considerably.

Ten minutes later, they were walking across the ranch with the afternoon light flattening into a pale winter gold over the enclosures. Gray told himself this was practical. He needed to check several habitats before evening regardless, and walking the property now would save him time later.

Roark did not challenge the fiction.

Bastiodon was the first stop.

He had settled beneath the awning beside the main stone habitat and was half asleep when they approached, legs folded beneath the enormous weight of his body. One eye opened as Roark came closer, tracking him without any particular concern.

Roark crouched beside the left shoulder and glanced toward Gray. “Can I?”

Bastiodon looked at Gray first.

Gray nodded.

Only then did Roark reach out. He ran his fingers carefully along the armor where the newer scratches from Snowpoint crossed older weathering, following the uneven lines without pressing anywhere near the joint itself. His expression shifted when he found the deeper scoring near the front plate.

“That machine did this?”

“Some of it.”

“And Salamence?”

“Some.”

Roark sat back on his heels and looked over the rest of the damage with a more thoughtful expression. The marks were superficial now that everything underneath had healed, but they told enough of the story on their own.

Bastiodon apparently decided the examination had lasted long enough.

He leaned his head forward.

Roark barely managed to brace before the enormous faceplate pressed into his chest.

He laughed and put both hands against it. “Yeah, yeah. Good to see you too.”

Bastiodon pushed harder.

Roark slid backward several inches through the dirt.

Gray watched.

Roark looked toward him. “Help?”

“No.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“He likes you.”

“This is not affection. This is tectonics.”

Bastiodon finally released him and settled again with a low, satisfied sound.

Roark brushed dirt from one knee and gave Gray a look that suggested he had filed the incident away for later retaliation.

They found Cradily in one of the warmer habitat sections, positioned beneath a bank of artificial heat lamps where the soil stayed damp enough to support the vegetation Gray used for enrichment. The difference in temperature hit them almost immediately when they stepped inside, carrying the smell of wet earth and greenery with it.

Cradily raised several tentacles when Gray entered.

For a moment, Roark smiled as though expecting some elaborate reunion.

Then Cradily noticed Gray was not carrying food.

Most of the tentacles lowered again.

Roark looked offended on Gray’s behalf. “He doesn’t care you’re home?”

“He cared three days ago.”

“That’s cold.”

“He’s eighteen.”

Cradily extended one tentacle toward Roark.

Roark brightened at once and leaned closer.

The tentacle passed directly beside him, reached toward the feeding tray, and took a piece of fruit.

Gray smiled.

Roark watched Cradily withdraw with the food and looked personally betrayed. “I really thought that was for me.”

“That was your mistake.”

They stayed long enough for Gray to check the moisture levels and glance over the substrate, then continued along the main path.

Aerodactyl found them next.

Gray did not find Aerodactyl.

There was a difference.

Roark had just started describing a new fossil preparation technique Oreburgh’s museum wanted to test, something involving finer stabilization around fragile matrix sections, when a shadow crossed the path.

Gray looked up just in time to see Aerodactyl descend.

The fossil Pokémon passed overhead with impossible precision, hooked Roark’s cap cleanly off his head, and climbed again before Roark fully processed what had happened.

Roark stopped walking.

Gray kept going.

“Gray.”

“He’ll get bored.”

“Gray.”

“You shouldn’t chase him.”

“He stole my hat.”

“He knows.”

Roark stared upward as Aerodactyl banked once above the path. “Why would he want my hat?”

“He doesn’t.”

That answer arrived at exactly the right moment.

Aerodactyl landed on a rock outcrop twenty meters away, looked directly at Roark, and deliberately dropped the cap onto the highest point.

Roark stared at the cap.

Then at Aerodactyl.

Then at Gray.

Gray shrugged. “He likes you.”

“I am beginning to hate that phrase.”

Aerodactyl opened his wings and launched away before Roark could reply.

They retrieved the cap with a ladder.

Absol was farther down the ranch near one of the tree lines, stretched beneath a patch of weak winter sunlight that had slipped through the bare branches. The new fur along his flank had started growing back over the burn from Snowpoint, but it was still shorter and lighter than the surrounding coat, enough that the injury remained obvious if someone knew where to look. Roark’s expression changed when he saw it. The easy humor he had carried through most of the afternoon eased away, and he slowed before getting too close.

Absol opened his eyes as they approached, looked first at Gray and then at Roark. Roark crouched several feet away rather than closing the distance. “Hey,” he said quietly, and then did nothing else. He did not reach out, try to coax Absol closer, or fill the silence with chatter. He simply waited while Absol regarded him. After a few seconds, Absol lowered his head back onto his paws, apparently deciding Roark did not require further attention. Gray considered that a successful interaction.

They had only just started walking again when Chatot appeared on Gray’s shoulder without warning, claws catching his coat as a burst of wingbeats brushed past his ear. Roark glanced over. Chatot glanced back.

“COWARD.”

Gray closed his eyes.

Roark immediately started laughing. “Cynthia?”

“Yes.”

“Good bird.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

Chatot leaned toward Roark, puffed himself up, and shouted, “BULLSHIT.”

That finished whatever remained of Roark’s composure. Gray reached up, removed Chatot from his shoulder, and placed him firmly on a nearby fence post while Roark struggled to stop laughing. “Stay,” Gray told him.

Chatot watched him with bright, innocent attention.

Gray took one step away.

Wingbeats sounded behind him.

A moment later, Chatot landed on his shoulder again.

Roark laughed harder.

Gray decided there was nothing useful to be gained by acknowledging any of it.

Aggron was near the mineral enclosure, nosing through a pile of stone that had been placed there specifically so he could rearrange it according to whatever private standards he applied to rocks. Roark barely made it through the gate before Aggron looked up.

Recognition took less than a second.

“Oh,” Roark said.

Aggron came forward with the enthusiasm of an armored landslide.

Roark spread both hands as though that might somehow slow him down. “Easy.”

Aggron did not understand the spirit of the request. He lowered his massive head and pressed it directly into Roark’s chest with enough force to push him backward three full steps across the packed ground.

Roark caught himself and looked at Gray. “Seriously?”

Gray folded his arms. “He likes you.”

“I hate you.”

Aggron made a deep, pleased sound and leaned in harder. Roark gave up on resisting and scratched along the side of his jaw. “Fine. You’re okay.”

Aggron leaned harder still.

Roark nearly fell.

Gray watched without offering assistance.

Blissey intercepted him near the main house.

She had clearly been looking for him. The instant she noticed Gray coming up the path, she changed direction and headed straight toward him with enough purpose that he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“No.”

Blissey kept coming.

“I am not injured.”

She reached him anyway.

“Bastiodon is fine.”

Blissey took his wrist.

“Absol is fine.”

She placed two fingers against his pulse.

Roark stopped nearby, folded his arms, and made no effort to hide how much he was enjoying this.

Gray glared at him. “You could help.”

“No.”

Blissey looked up at Gray without releasing his wrist, waiting with the patient expression she used whenever she had already decided resistance was pointless.

Gray sighed. “I slept eleven hours.”

Her expression changed slightly.

“That was one time.”

She kept checking his pulse.

“I’ve also eaten today.”

“Twice,” Roark added.

Gray turned toward him. “Why are you helping her?”

“Because this is the most effective anyone has ever been at managing you.”

Blissey finally released Gray’s wrist and patted his arm with obvious satisfaction.

Gray decided that was humiliating enough for one afternoon and continued walking before she found another metric to inspect.

Kangaskhan was farther out near one of the broader grazing areas, supervising a younger ranch Pokémon that had apparently decided a feed bucket belonged upside down. She righted it with one hand, nudged the smaller Pokémon away from it, then noticed Gray and Roark approaching.

Roark slowed almost immediately.

“She always look at people like that?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

Gray glanced toward Kangaskhan. “Like you’re about to make a bad decision.”

Roark looked back at her.

Kangaskhan looked at Roark.

The silence stretched just long enough to become uncomfortable.

“I feel judged,” Roark said.

“You probably are.”

Kangaskhan gave a quiet huff and turned her attention back to the feed bucket.

Roark lowered his voice. “Did I pass?”

Gray kept walking. “I wouldn’t assume that.”

Venusaur occupied one of the greenhouse-adjacent sections where Gray could keep the winter conditions from becoming too severe. The enclosure remained warmer than the surrounding ranch, and condensation had fogged the lower panes of the greenhouse wall. Venusaur had settled beneath the filtered light with the enormous flower on his back partially open, while several smaller Grass-types had gathered nearby to take advantage of the warmth.

Gray stopped outside the enclosure.

Venusaur opened one eye.

Gray lifted a hand.

The eye closed again.

Roark waited.

Nothing else happened.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“He’s comfortable.”

“Does he know you were gone?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Gray looked at him.

Roark sighed. “Right. Pokémon.”

Marowak was near the practice yard, working methodically against a suspended training post. His bone club struck the padded target with the same measured rhythm over and over, every impact landing almost exactly where the previous one had. Roark slowed to watch for a while as Marowak adjusted his stance, repeated the strike, then corrected by what seemed like less than an inch.

“He ever miss?” Roark asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When he wants to.”

Roark looked at Gray, thought about asking a follow-up, and apparently decided his afternoon would be easier without one.

By the time they looped back toward the fossil habitats, Dracovish and Cranidos had fallen asleep beside the fence. Both were sprawled in positions that looked medically concerning until Gray got close enough to confirm they were breathing normally. Dracovish had somehow managed to leave most of his body on the grass while wedging his head awkwardly against the base of a fence post. Cranidos lay a few feet away on his side, legs loose and jaw slightly open.

Roark stopped beside them and smiled. “Think they had fun?”

Dracovish answered with a loud snore while Cranidos kicked once in his sleep.

Gray looked at both of them for a moment. “Yes.”

They continued toward the pond.

Gray did not know yet that this was where the day would become complicated.

He counted the Magikarp because he always counted the Magikarp. There was no deeper reason for it. Thirty-three had lived in the pond for long enough that checking the number had simply become part of the routine whenever Gray passed. Some surfaced immediately when they heard footsteps, while others stayed deeper until feeding time. Gray could identify most of them by size, fin damage, scale pattern, behavior, or the increasingly specific ways they had learned to be irritating.

He counted once as they approached the near edge.

Then he counted again.

Roark had continued several steps before noticing Gray was no longer beside him. He turned back. “Something wrong?”

Gray did not answer immediately. He moved farther along the shoreline and started over from the beginning, slower this time, tracking each Magikarp individually where he could.

Thirty-two.

He counted a third time.

Still thirty-two.

“There are thirty-two,” Gray said at last.

Roark waited for the rest.

“There are supposed to be thirty-three.”

Roark glanced toward the pond. “Could one be underwater?”

“Obviously one could be underwater.”

“Then why are you looking at me like I stole it?”

Gray was already walking the perimeter.

The snow and soft soil around the pond showed no sign of anything large approaching. There were no drag marks, no scattered scales, and no disturbance that suggested a predator had gotten close. He checked the shallow edges for any sign that one had launched itself out of the water and failed to return, but found nothing there either.

Roark followed at a slower pace. “You can actually tell them apart?”

Gray stopped and looked at him. “Of course.”

“All thirty-three?”

“Yes.”

Roark glanced at the pond again. “Gray, they’re Magikarp.”

Gray stared at him.

Roark reconsidered almost immediately. “I respect their individuality.”

“Better.”

They continued toward the far end.

Something surfaced near the reeds.

Gray stopped again.

Magikarp #17 looked at him.

Gray looked back.

Roark nearly walked into him before realizing he had stopped. “What now?”

Gray did not answer.

Seventeen floated near the surface with the same unpleasant confidence he had displayed since Gray first assigned him the number. His mouth opened once, closed, then opened again.

Something was different.

Gray narrowed his eyes.

Roark followed his gaze. “What?”

“He’s bigger.”

Roark looked at Seventeen, then at Gray, then back at Seventeen. “How much bigger?”

“I don’t know.”

“So maybe he’s not.”

“He is.”

Seventeen remained near the surface.

Gray stepped closer to the edge.

The Magikarp looked remarkably healthy.

Very healthy.

Suspiciously healthy.

Gray glanced across the rest of the pond.

Thirty-two.

Then back at Seventeen.

Roark’s expression changed slowly as he followed Gray’s attention and arrived at the same implication.

“No.”

Gray did not look at him. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking it,” Roark said.

Gray kept his attention on the water. “I am observing.”

“You think he ate Thirty-Three.”

“I did not say that.”

“You think a Magikarp ate another Magikarp.”

Gray finally looked at him. “I am currently documenting two independent observations.”

Roark covered his face with one hand.

Gray continued anyway, lifting one finger as though the distinction mattered enough to deserve formal structure. “One: Magikarp Thirty-Three is unaccounted for. Two: Magikarp Seventeen appears larger than expected.”

Roark lowered his hand just enough to glare at him. “You cannot put those next to each other and pretend you aren’t accusing him of murder.”

Gray crouched beside the pond.

Seventeen noticed and drifted closer.

The Magikarp approached with no visible concern, mouth opening and closing lazily as he came within a few feet of the bank. Gray leaned forward and pointed at him.

“Where is Thirty-Three?”

Seventeen stared back.

Behind Gray, Roark made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan.

Gray leaned closer. “Do not play stupid.”

Seventeen slapped his tail against the surface.

A sheet of cold pond water hit Gray directly in the face.

For one second, nobody moved.

Then Roark doubled over.

Gray remained crouched at the edge, water dripping from his hair and coat while Seventeen vanished beneath the surface with one sharp flick of his tail.

Roark staggered toward a nearby rock and sat down because apparently standing had become too difficult.

Gray took off his glasses and wiped them slowly on the driest part of his sleeve. “This is not funny.”

“It is the funniest thing I’ve seen all month.”

“He knows something.”

“He’s a Magikarp.”

“He is an asshole.”

That only made Roark laugh harder.

Gray stood, put his glasses back on, and scanned the pond with renewed suspicion. “You’re helping me search tomorrow.”

Roark’s laughter faded enough for him to answer. “No.”

“Then stop defending him.”

“I am not defending him from a murder charge because there is no murder charge.”

Gray looked toward the water again.

A fin broke the surface briefly near the center of the pond.

Possibly Seventeen.

Possibly another Magikarp.

Gray narrowed his eyes.

Roark noticed and caught the sleeve of his coat before he could move closer to the bank. “Leave him alone.”

“He knows what he did.”

“You have no evidence.”

Gray turned his head.

Roark immediately realized the mistake.

Gray smiled.

“That has never stopped you from accusing me of things.”

Roark pointed at him. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“You usually did them.”

Gray turned back toward the pond without acknowledging that this was, statistically, a stronger argument than he would have liked.

They stayed near the water longer than either of them had planned. Gray counted again twice as the afternoon light shifted, waiting for another familiar fin or scale pattern to surface among the others. Thirty-two Magikarp eventually became visible.

Number Thirty-Three did not.

Gray took out his notebook.

Roark saw him writing and stared. “You actually wrote it down.”

“Yes.”

“What did you write?”

Gray closed the notebook.

“Research.”

“That’s not research.”

Gray slipped the notebook back into his coat. “Neither was your haircut at sixteen.”

Roark stared at him.

Gray walked away.

By the time they ended up behind the main house, the last of the daylight had softened into the warm orange edge of sunset. They dragged two chairs into the remaining patch of sun and sat with nothing particularly urgent left to do.

Roark had recovered his cap from Aerodactyl.

Dracovish and Cranidos had migrated from the practice field to the grass nearby and fallen asleep again, apparently having exhausted whatever energy the first nap had restored. Dracovish lay awkwardly on one side with his mouth slightly open, while Cranidos had curled closer than he had earlier, one foot occasionally twitching in his sleep. Bastiodon rested farther down the slope beneath the awning, large and still in the fading light. Cradily was barely visible through the habitat glass. Somewhere overhead, Aerodactyl crossed the evening sky, his shadow sliding over the yard without descending this time.

Chatot was still swearing near the roof.

Aggron had finally stopped attempting to lean his full weight on Roark.

Blissey had checked Gray twice more.

The ranch settled around them the way it always did toward evening. Staff finished the last rounds. Gates clicked shut in the distance. Feed bins closed. Pokémon called from one enclosure to another, some answering and others apparently choosing not to. The pond caught the orange light between the trees and reflected it in broken bands whenever something moved beneath the surface.

Roark leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. For several minutes, he said nothing.

Then he glanced toward Gray. “You glad to be home?”

Gray looked across the ranch.

There were still Snowpoint reports waiting inside. The League would probably send another round of revisions to the habitat designation tomorrow. Cynthia had already messaged twice since the meeting ended, mostly to complain that Gray had hung up on her. Julian would probably call within a week to report that Cacnea had attached himself to his face again.

Dracovish twitched in his sleep beside Cranidos.

Gray watched him for a moment.

“Yeah.”

Something splashed violently in the pond.

Gray turned his head.

Roark did not.

“Leave him alone.”

Gray narrowed his eyes toward the water. “He knows what he did.”

“You still have no evidence.”

Gray settled back into the chair.

For now, that was acceptable.