An hour later.
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Eevee lay sprawled across the couch, thoroughly dazed. The Soothe Bell sat quietly back in its box. It tilted its head, still visibly not fully recovered from... whatever that had been.
Luke brought over a bowl of washed Leppa Berries, carved into little rabbit shapes, toothpick in his mouth. "Want some?"
"Vee..." Eevee nodded obediently — then shuddered head to toe, face flushing, and bolted straight into the bedroom.
"(￣～￣) Kojie!" Haunter, unbothered, opened wide and devoured the entire bowl of rabbits in one go, crunching happily through the lot.
Luke scratched his head. "Guess the Soothe Bell's working better than expected." He nodded. "I'll put it back on once Eevee's had a chance to recover."
The entry into the tournament had technically been an accident — Haunter's doing, not his — but the reward at the end had genuinely delivered.
With summer break now officially underway, Luke figured he'd earned himself a short breather. "I'll take the two little guys out for dinner tonight," he decided. "Good excuse to level up my cooking skill too."
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A gentle evening breeze drifted through the riverside patio restaurant, city lights rippling across the water, neon threading together Metro City's nighttime skyline. Magikarp leapt occasionally, a handful of Lapras drifting past in the dark, their low, haunting cries carrying across the water.
Haunter sprawled across the table, sauce smeared across its face, a baguette in one hand and a sandwich in the other. It shot Luke a sidelong glance, faintly disdainful, watching him gaze out at the river.
Honestly... his home cooking is still better than this place.
Eevee: (ω)
Luke's expression stayed conflicted, gripping a complimentary newspaper the restaurant had left on the table, headline blazing across the front page:
"EXCLUSIVE: Piplup Cup Prodigy Wins Championship — His Training Method Revealed!"
Word of Luke's win had rippled through the entire Metro City Trainer scene overnight — the first non-professional Champion in the tournament's history. Students across every Pokémon Academy in the city were still processing it. Since when did the times change this much? Handsome AND a Finance Department student taking the title?
The Metro City Evening News had run it as their lead story.
[Editor's Note: Training philosophies have proliferated in recent years, few genuinely persuasive. Luke, the Piplup Cup's new champion, embodies a rare humanistic care for his Pokémon — a philosophy rooted in mutual trust between Trainer and partner, rather than pure performance metrics...]
Luke's eye twitched. There's an angle like THIS available? I'm not even a Trainer, please stop making things up about me.
Regardless, the paper's reach was undeniable — by the time dinner was halfway done, Luke had already fielded messages from three different Pokémon-major students requesting training advice. The further he read, the more his face contorted.
[Given the Champion's limited availability, we spoke instead with Chairman Preston of the Metro City Pokémon Association.]
[Preston: This represents a genuinely advanced training philosophy. Similar bond-centered approaches exist in Unova and elsewhere.]
[Preston: Leading with the heart rather than treating victory as the sole objective — understanding the emotional connection built through training itself — I believe that's precisely what carried him to the championship.]
Reading the full piece, even Luke found himself genuinely stunned.
"...Huh. So THAT'S the angle." His eyes widened. "Why didn't I think of framing it that way myself?"
Presumably, that infamous "$28,000 in promotional resources" from the prize package had just materialized as exactly this — a full media write-up. Being publicly crowned a training genius while genuinely not being a Trainer left Luke with an oddly specific kind of unease.
Not that he was worried about being recognized on the street over it, though. They interviewed ME, sure, but what's that actually got to do with the real Teacher Luke?
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Night deepened. Eevee perched on one shoulder, Haunter drifting along behind, the three of them made their way home.
Back inside, the Soothe Bell went back around Eevee's neck — a brief freeze, then its head lifted with unmistakable pride.
Eevee: o(^｀)o
Luke scooped it up by the scruff, tossed it onto the running wheel, and gave it a good shove. Its eyes lit up instantly.
Oh. Combo bonus. This is genuinely great.
"Kojie!" A cloud of Haze split off from Haunter, resolving into a fresh Substitute. Haunter grabbed a broom; the Substitute picked up a dustpan, and the two dutifully swept the apartment together.
Luke blinked, impressed despite himself. Good boy — multitasking chores and move training at the same time?
"Mop the floor after too."
"Kojie!"
Having just wrapped the tournament, Luke skipped streaming for the night, opting instead to lie in bed scrolling his phone, half-listening to the pleasant chime of Eevee's bell ringing steadily from the running wheel.
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The Master group had shifted focus to the upcoming Master League.
Green: @Red, are you competing in the Master League this July?!
Red: Nah. Not planning on it.
An exhibition-format event like this simply didn't offer Red much of a real challenge.
Blue: If it were unrestricted-format, you'd probably show up though, wouldn't you?
Red: Ha, wouldn't you too?
Unrestricted battles put the Trainer directly on the field alongside their Pokémon, fully exposed to attack — functionally closer to a genuine wild encounter. Pokémon could be swapped freely mid-fight, and the match ended either when the opposing Trainer was subdued or their full team went down. Historically, this was the standard format across the Pokémon Adventures era, with defeating the Trainer directly as the actual win condition — right up until Red's ninth Indigo Plateau Conference win, after which official competitions phased the format out almost entirely.
The exchange between the two legends left the chat briefly quiet.
Lorelei: Last year's Master League title went to Leon — good odds he defends it again this year.
Ethan: Only because Senior Red skipped it... if Leon actually shows up at Indigo Plateau, I'll personally take him down myself.
By current official rankings, Leon out of Galar sat at #1 in the Master League, partnered with his Charizard. The general consensus among Master-tier competitors, though, remained the same as ever: if that particular Kanto legend ever entered the bracket, the whole picture would look completely different.
Rankings shuffled every year, and this year's finals were set for Wyndon Stadium in Galar. With Gigantamax factored in, Leon's odds of defending the title looked genuinely strong.
Whitney: You're calling out LEON? Beat me first, big talker.
Ethan: ?! Woman, all bark, no bite!
Whitney: Come find me in Goldenrod then. I'll be waiting. (fist emoji)
[Member "Ethan" muted by admin for 5 minutes]
[Member "Whitney" muted by admin for 5 minutes]
______________________________
Having smoothly handled crowd control, Luke scratched his head, thinking back over the highlight reels he'd seen on YouTube — Leon's unbeatable Gigantamax Charizard, sure, but also Mega Charizard Y, Mega Charizard X, and who knew, maybe even a Water Absorb variant down the line.
Luke paused.
"Oh, right — every form's actually real and unlocked in this world."