On the other side of the screen, Aresdra let out a sharp, delighted squeal.
"A Mudkip! When did you catch it?"
"I didn't catch it. I still hadn't received a Starter Pokémon, remember? Since I had the money from this last job, I sorted that out."
"That's a little unusual, getting your Starter as your fifth Pokémon. But congratulations anyway." She paused. "Actually, congratulations to me."
"Why are you congratulating yourself over my Pokémon?"
Nova had expected something playful, the kind of thing Aresdra usually said. What he got instead was something else entirely.
"Because I was going to buy it for you myself.
You were the only one earning money at the start. We only had one fund coming in, and you gave up your own spot for me. I've always felt like I owed you for that. So I decided that once I had money of my own, I would find you a really good Starter Pokémon. Now you have one, and even though I didn't pay for it, it still feels like something is settled."
Nova smiled at the screen.
Aresdra's way of thinking had always been a little different. She had a way of arriving at something genuine from an unexpected direction, and he never quite knew what she was going to say next.
But he knew she was not joking. She had thought about it, and this was how she actually felt.
There was a version of the future where, if Nova had never picked up Mudkip on his own, Aresdra would never have mentioned it. She would simply have saved quietly, settled the debt on her own terms, and then found some small, well-timed way to surprise him with it.
She had faced real hardship at a young age and come out of it with her own quiet approach to things. Nova, carrying more than thirty years of experience from his previous life, had his own. Neither of them had any trouble sitting with difficult feelings until the right moment to act on them arrived.
"So," Aresdra said, shifting into a lighter tone, "have you thought of a name?"
"We agreed you'd name mine and I'd name yours. So go ahead."
She thought for a moment, then brightened. "If it's a girl, Seele. If it's a boy, Xiel."
Nova quietly checked with the Cultivation System and confirmed that the Mudkip was, in fact, female, which made the choice easy.
Seele it was.
He turned the name over in his mind and felt something click unexpectedly. It suited her. A Mudkip who had awakened a Philosopher trait, sitting quietly by the poolside contemplating her own reflection, and now named Seele. There was something almost fitting about it that went beyond the joke.[T/N: Seele is the German word for soul, spirit, or mind]
He mentioned the shoulder problem to Aresdra while he had her attention. Going out with both Sprigatito and Mudkip active and outside their Poké Balls was proving more difficult than expected. Nova was not a physically imposing Trainer by any measure, and hauling two Pokémon on his shoulders was already starting to wear on him. It also, he admitted, probably looked a bit odd. One Pokémon on your shoulder read as affection. Two read as a different kind of statement entirely.
Aresdra had a solution ready almost immediately.
Mudkip, she pointed out, had no particular interest in walking. As long as no one interrupted her quiet contemplation, she was perfectly content to be wherever she was placed. The answer was a backpack, ideally one of the Pokémon carry packs designed for small companions, the kind with ventilation and enough room to sit comfortably. Mudkip could ride in the pack and continue her philosophical survey of the universe from there, undisturbed.
That left Sprigatito free to resume its exclusive position on Nova's shoulder without competition. The dynamic was preserved, the rivalry defused, and no one had to compromise on anything important.
Nova had to admit he would have spent at least a week arriving at that answer on his own. Aresdra had reached it in about thirty seconds.
The solution was clean. The only problem was that once Nova actually started preparing for the journey ahead, he discovered that the backpack had already been claimed by necessity before Mudkip could move in.
This was not a short trip. The route ahead would take him through long stretches of wilderness with no access to towns or resupply points. The large hiking pack he had bought earlier was already a serious piece of equipment, and it was filling up fast. Nutritional food for every Pokémon on the team, prepared according to the Cultivation System's formulas, took up considerable space on its own. Add camping gear, medical supplies, and everything else a proper journey required, and the available space disappeared quickly.
He found himself wondering how Trainers in the old shows managed. A small backpack barely large enough for a change of clothes, and somehow it produced food bowls, sleeping bags, and on one memorable occasion, a full tent. Either the laws of physics worked differently for them, or there was some very serious storage technology involved that nobody mentioned on screen.
Nova had no such technology. The Cultivation System, for all its usefulness, was exactly what its name described: a system for developing Pokémon. Nothing more. It had never offered him a storage upgrade, an item compressor, or any other quality-of-life feature that might have made the packing situation easier.
He stood in the backyard looking at the pile of supplies and then looked at Nidoking, who was stretched out on the grass in a patch of afternoon sun, deeply and contentedly asleep.
Nova's expression became thoughtful.
Nidoking was very large. Nidoking was also very strong. And as it happened, Nidoking had not yet been asked to carry anything on this trip.
That was about to change.