To be fair, Sprigatito was not entirely being unreasonable. After a long series of run-ins with Prosperity, it had learned that throwing a tantrum would not earn it any extra attention from Nova. It understood perfectly well why Nova wanted to keep the new Mudkip out of its Poké Ball. So what it was really asking for came down to one thing: fairness. It was not worried about having less. It was worried about being treated differently.
The message was clear enough. Either Nova held Mudkip in one arm and let Sprigatito ride on his shoulder as usual, or he carried neither of them at all.
Sprigatito was not going to stand for being second.
"Fine. You win."
Nova stood there for a full two minutes, ribbons being waved in his face, before he made his decision. He would carry both of them, one on each shoulder. Equal weight, equal treatment, no room for complaint.
Sprigatito accepted this arrangement immediately. Mudkip, for its part, did not seem to have any particular feelings about it either way.
Nova was starting to suspect that Mudkip had not yet formed much of an opinion about having a Trainer at all. Whether it was surrounded by two thousand others of its kind in the nursery or perched on Nova's shoulder in the middle of a busy street, it behaved in exactly the same way: standing still every few seconds, staring at something only it could perceive, running Detect on the world around it.
The average Mudkip weighed around 7.5 kilograms. Nova's little Philosopher was noticeably smaller than the others in the nursery, and when he had checked its data at the factory, it came in at only 5.8 kilograms. Sprigatito, by comparison, should have weighed around 4.1 kilograms based on the average for its species.
It was odd, then, that his two shoulders felt about equally loaded.
Nova glanced sideways at Sprigatito, which had clearly decided it was the winner of this situation and was sitting very upright, tail curled neatly, purring with great satisfaction.
Nova could not quite help himself.
"Sprigatito."
"Mrrp?"
It looked at him with one ear tilted forward.
"Have you put on weight again?"
The reaction was immediate. Sprigatito puffed up like it had been hit by a status move, ribbons fanning out, expression shifting from smug to deeply offended in under a second.
Teasing a cat, Nova reflected, never really got old.
It did, however, require follow-up care. Sprigatito had now skipped two meals, hissing at its food bowl every time Nova placed it down, clearly committed to proving some kind of point.
After finishing his errand in Nivan City, Nova rented a Pidgeot for the return journey to Harmony City. The flight took a while, and after several days of travelling, he was glad to settle back in for a proper rest before the next leg of his journey.
That evening, the food bowl situation had not improved. Nova set out the carefully prepared cat food and Sprigatito sat beside the bowl with its back straight, looked directly at it, and hissed.
This could not continue. The meals Nova made for his Pokémon were not ordinary food. They were prepared according to the exact nutritional formulas the Cultivation System provided, calibrated to each Pokémon's individual needs. Skipping them was not just stubbornness; it was falling behind on growth and training. There was a reason Nidoking had developed such impressive strength. It had a healthy appetite and never refused a meal.
Sprigatito was going to eat tonight. Nova was determined to make it happen, and if persuasion was what it took, then so be it.
"You know, cats are actually cuter when they're a little round. A thin cat just looks uncomfortable."
Sprigatito's ear twitched.
"I happen to think a bit of extra softness suits you very well."
"What? Aresdra? That's a completely different situation and you know it."
"I'm the one who knows you best. Would I tell you something that wasn't true?"
"What do you mean I'm always lying to you? Those were exceptions. Very specific exceptions. If that's how you see things, then I genuinely don't know what more I can do."
Sprigatito watched this performance with narrow, deeply unconvinced eyes. Its time with Prosperity had sharpened it in ways that showed. It was not the wide-eyed Sprigatito that had believed everything Nova said. It recognised when it was being handled.
The look on its face was perfectly clear: You're the one who called me fat, and now you're trying to talk me into eating. You have some nerve.
Nova sat down on the carpet, looked at the ceiling, and sighed.
He had teased this cat too many times. Whatever store of innocence Sprigatito had started with had been fully spent, and what remained was a sharp, sceptical Pokémon that was now perfectly happy to argue back. He had brought this entirely on himself.
Which left the trump card.
"If you're not going to eat it, the food shouldn't go to waste. I suppose I'll just give it to Prosperity."
Sprigatito's eyes went wide.
The food bowl was empty in under a minute. Nova did not laugh. He did not dare. One wrong expression and the whole thing would start over.
Prosperity had never actually done anything to earn Sprigatito's level of intensity about this particular rivalry, but the Purrloin had grown up on the streets and had a talent for getting under Sprigatito's skin that no amount of training could replicate. Every time Prosperity had the audacity to look comfortable near Nova, Sprigatito lost all sense of proportion. And so, Nova had found his reliable solution. One mention of Prosperity's name, and Sprigatito would cooperate with almost anything.
Powerful as it was in battle, Sprigatito was still not difficult to read once you knew the pattern.
After dinner, Nova's phone buzzed with an incoming video call. It was Aresdra.
She picked up before the call had barely connected and delivered the first three words at full speed, as if she had been waiting with them ready.
"I missed you!"
Nova shook his head. "Is this a competition now? Are we racing to see who says it first?"
"Yes," Aresdra said, with complete seriousness. "And I always win."
She shifted topics before he could respond.
"Okay, listen. This Psyduck. It is hopeless. When it's hungry, it doesn't eat. When it's thirsty, it doesn't drink. When it rains, it just stands there and gets wet. I don't know what to do with it."
She picked up Psyduck from somewhere off screen and held it up in front of the camera. It stared forward with its usual expression, one eye tracking slightly to the left, the other to the right, giving the general impression of a Pokémon that had entirely misplaced its thoughts.
Nova felt a familiar wave of guilt.
He had named the Psyduck DIO as a joke, pairing it with Aresdra's Torchic who he had named Jojo. It had seemed funny at the time. The bright golden feathers were the only thing the two really had in common, along with a vague and entirely unconvincing claim to some kind of unusual ability. But DIO was the name it had now, and DIO it would remain.
To lighten the mood, Nova reached over and picked up Mudkip, who had been standing nearby in silent contemplation of something the rest of them could not perceive, and held it up to the camera.
Two pairs of eyes met through the phone screen.
One pair belonged to a Mudkip conducting a careful philosophical survey of everything around it. The other belonged to a Psyduck that appeared to have temporarily misplaced the concept of thought entirely.
Mudkip stared at Psyduck.
Psyduck stared back.
It was, against all odds, a meeting of equals.