The Goldenrod Gym wasn’t subtle.

  Its entrance was wide, set into a tiered plaza lined with glass tiles and stylized Normal-type insignias. The building looked more like a performance venue than a traditional Gym—part stadium, part showroom. Bright banners hung from the awning above the doors, advertising upcoming exhibition matches and League-sanctioned merchandise.

  Al stepped through the main doors into a well-lit lobby filled with touchscreen kiosks, League banners, and a wide reception desk where a pair of Gym staff coordinated the flow of trainers and spectators.

  He didn’t wait in line.

  Instead, he approached the nearest staffer with quiet purpose. The woman behind the desk gave him a quick once-over—coat, belt, no flash, no badge lanyard—then turned professional.

  “Gym challenge inquiry?” she asked.

  “Star Badge,” Al replied.

  That changed her posture. She didn’t nod—just motioned for him to follow. “Right this way.”

  They passed the main waiting area and took a short hallway to a side office where a secure terminal waited behind a League-locked door. She scanned her ID, keyed a few commands, and gestured for him to step forward.

  “Trainer ID?”

  Al keyed it in manually.

  The system took a second to process before the match intake screen loaded. The woman glanced at it, then looked back to Al. “Your team’s cleared for Star Badge tier. Any changes since Azalea?”

  “No substitutions.”

  “Preferred format?”

  “Standard six-on-six. No swaps. No assist items.”

  She input the final entries.

  “Soonest available match window is in three days. Open slots again two and a half weeks from today. Whitney's team will be rotated by then.”

  Al didn’t hesitate. “Two and a half weeks.”

  The staffer raised an eyebrow. “Deliberate prep?”

  Al nodded. “I want time to recondition one of my starters.”

  The woman finalized the entry. “Done. Match scheduled. League confirmation will be sent to your PokéNav tonight. You’ll need to check in an hour before the match—standard protocol.”

  He nodded once.

  As she stood, she paused briefly. “Star Badge trainers usually don’t delay.”

  Al didn’t answer.

  He didn’t need to.

  (break)

  The commons area behind Goldenrod Gym was less a training yard and more a garden designed for high-functioning Pokémon. Open-air courtyards, reinforced sparring circles, and a few elevated walkways crisscrossed a multi-level green space built into the back of the Gym complex. Trainers moved through at their own pace—some in casual wear, others in gear that marked them as recent victors or long-term Gym associates.

  Al stood near the northern platform, where the terrain flattened into a circular field marked by practice zones. No crowds. No League reps. Just sunlight, low wind, and space.

  He released his team one at a time.

  Swampert took a seat near a shallow pool fed by a slow-running water line. Breloom immediately wandered to the edge of the nearest obstacle path and began testing his movement across the uneven stone. Manectric stretched his legs and sniffed the air, catching traces of unfamiliar scents. Metagross hovered in place a few meters off the ground, rotating slowly with methodical pulses of his central field.

  Then Gardevoir appeared.

  She landed quietly, posture steady, arms folded lightly at her side.

  Al gave her a brief glance, then turned toward the inner sparring circle. “With me.”

  She followed without question.

  The others knew what that meant. They scattered—not far, but enough to give space. Swampert closed his eyes, resting. Breloom dropped into a low rhythm against a wooden post, training strikes. Manectric paced. Metagross... watched.

  Gardevoir stepped onto the field beside Al.

  “You’ve been ready for a while,” he said.

  She tilted her head.

  “But we haven’t moved past formation drills. Not really.”

  Gardevoir didn’t reply, but her field shifted subtly—acceptance.

  He tapped his PokéNav. A timed sequence initiated: floating light markers, motion paths, projection lines. The field lit with simulated movement patterns. A complex dance of anticipation.

  “Today, we train. Properly.”

  He stepped back, gave her the field.

  “Start phase one.”

  She moved instantly—teleportation sweeps, control orbs circling like tethered stars. She wasn’t just fast. She was exact. Each flicker of displacement aligned with the path Al had set. No wasted movement. No hesitation.

  But it wasn’t power he was looking for.

  It was connection.

  He crossed his arms. “Add a delay between phase shifts.”

  She paused mid-teleport. Adjusted. Reappeared half a second slower. Again. Again. Her form flickered like a heartbeat now, not a machine.

  That was what he needed.

  Timing aligned not to tempo—but to instinct.

  He watched, eyes narrowed.

  He could feel something stirring beneath the technique. Not psychic output. Not raw force.

  Resonance.

  Something was beginning to sync. And it wasn’t from commands.

  (break)

  The Gym commons emptied as the sun dipped behind Goldenrod’s skyline. Lights along the upper walls glowed dim yellow, casting long, slanted shadows across the training field. Most trainers had cleared out—either headed to meal halls or rest wings. Only a few silhouettes remained, sparring in near-silence.

  Al stayed.

  Gardevoir hovered just outside the sparring ring, arms drawn close, veil flowing lightly in the cooling breeze.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  He stood across from her now—no distractions, no equipment. Just space.

  “We’re done training the mind.”

  He raised his hand, palm outward. “Now we train the link.”

  Her eyes glinted faintly. She stepped forward.

  The battle wasn’t explosive.

  It was quiet. Purposeful. Gardevoir moved not in arcs of power, but intention—soft feints, short teleports, orbs flickering out just enough to push Al to step or shift. Al didn’t call attacks. He moved—adjusting his own posture, gauging spacing, nodding as if answering questions only they understood.

  Midway through, she dropped her next movement to half-speed.

  Al moved with her—walking a line, tracing the projected arc of her strike, and ending it without impact.

  They repeated that again.

  And again.

  Until the flow wasn’t a sequence—it was a rhythm.

  At one point, she hesitated. Not a mistake. Just a break in the cycle.

  He stepped into the pause. No order. Just presence.

  Her field pulsed—gentle, like a ripple across a pond. Not pressure. Not alarm.

  Just acknowledgment.

  Al took a breath and reached out—not with his hand, but with intention. He didn’t command her power. He met it.

  A soft pulse of psychic light gathered at her chest. Not an attack. Not a shield.

  Something else.

  He didn’t speak it out loud.

  But the thought brushed between them—an understanding. A convergence. A bond that didn’t require explanation.

  Whatever the future held—whatever shape that energy might take—this was the beginning of it.

  They stepped back. Together.

  The training session ended without a single word.

  And neither of them needed one.

  (break)

  Gardevoir’s POV

  The world quieted when he stepped into the ring.

  Not because of the noise—there had been little of that to begin with—but because of the intent. The shift in rhythm. The way his eyes settled, steady and unreadable, as they always were.

  But this time, they weren’t distant.

  This time, he wasn’t testing her reactions or tracking power output. He was watching her. Engaged, not as a commander, but as a partner.

  She felt it the moment he raised his hand—not to order, but to meet her motion. The signal was clear. They weren’t training control today. They were training something else.

  Something deeper.

  Each movement she made was received, not countered. When she pivoted, he shifted. When she hesitated, he waited. She projected a thread of thought—half-formed, reflexive—and he moved as if he’d heard it out loud.

  It wasn’t speech.

  It was trust.

  They had fought together before. But this was different. There was no enemy here. No victory to claim.

  Just alignment.

  Her thoughts reached gently—never invasive, just enough to brush against the outline of his focus. He didn’t open the door. But he didn’t close it, either. That mattered.

  When she slowed the tempo, testing the feel of his response, he adapted without resistance. She felt the difference in his stance: not sharp, not wary. Just... open.

  She knew what this was.

  Bondwork. The kind of training that didn’t teach techniques, but taught presence. Feel. The kind that shaped something stronger than strategies.

  And then it happened.

  That flicker—quiet and bright. A pulse of something nascent. Familiar. The same kind of energy she’d felt in ancient lines, myth-bound texts. Not magic. Not mystery.

  Potential.

  She held it for a second longer before letting it fade.

  And in that silence, as they both stepped back, she understood:

  He wasn’t just training her.

  He was trusting her to go further than they knew how to explain.

  And she would.

  (break)

  The private field Al had reserved sat quiet beneath a low-slung sky, clouds heavy but dry. The city noise was a distant hum, muffled by hedgerows and training partitions. Gardevoir stood at the center of the grounds, veil-arms folded, feet just above the grass. Her eyes were half-closed—not in meditation, but in calculation.

  Al stood fifteen meters back, one foot on the edge marker. His coat was off, sleeves rolled. He didn’t speak. Just watched.

  The first command came silently. A subtle hand motion—barely a flick.

  Gardevoir moved.

  A glimmer of psychic energy sparked around her, flaring in delicate rings before tightening into an orb no larger than a marble. It hovered midair, steady, then shot forward toward a set of balanced stones—target markers, aligned by weight.

  The first burst struck clean. The top stone flew. The others remained perfectly stacked.

  Al raised his hand again.

  Gardevoir pivoted, sent another pulse—this one split mid-flight, two smaller projectiles cleaving off and striking paired markers on opposite sides of the field.

  One left standing.

  Al frowned slightly. Adjusted his stance.

  “No flair. Control the recoil,” he said.

  Gardevoir gave a faint nod and repeated the sequence—slower this time. Her fingers moved in tight, refined gestures, as if shaping the energy instead of projecting it.

  This time, all targets fell. Clean.

  He nodded once. “Again.”

  The cycle continued—long enough for the clouds to shift overhead, for sweat to bead on Al’s brow and fine tremors to start showing in Gardevoir’s shoulders.

  But she didn’t falter.

  They transitioned next into combat form drills—teleport pivots, feint illusions, energy compression. Al walked through every motion, never raising his voice, always tracking the slight delays and adjusting spacing with chalk and quiet notes.

  “Left too wide on the second fade,” he murmured after a sequence.

  Gardevoir exhaled, adjusted.

  By the time they stopped, the air around them hummed faintly from residual energy. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. Just… potent.

  They stood in silence for a long minute.

  Then Al stepped forward, knelt, and drew a small curve in the dust with his finger—a training symbol from Hoenn. Focus, sharpen, repeat.

  He didn’t speak it aloud. Didn’t need to.

  Gardevoir looked down at it, then slowly mirrored the shape with her psychic field, suspending it in light.

  It didn’t vanish. It hung there. Stable. Shared.

  Al let himself exhale.

  They were getting closer.

  (break)

  Goldenrod City moved at a different rhythm in the late afternoon. The shops buzzed with their last wave of customers, cafés spilled quiet music into the streets, and the park near the south district softened under the gold wash of the setting sun.

  Al sat on a low stone wall just off the main walking path, Gardevoir beside him, silent.

  His eyes followed a group of kids running after a bouncing Skitty. They laughed—loud, unrestrained. It echoed faintly off the trees.

  He said nothing at first.

  Then quietly, to no one in particular: “You ever wonder how I just… did this?”

  Gardevoir turned slightly toward him.

  “I shouldn’t be this comfortable here,” he said. “This world. These rules. I shouldn’t have known how to train. How to give commands. How to plan a Gym rotation.”

  His voice didn’t waver. Just puzzled, not distressed.

  “I’ve been here a little over a month, maybe more. No panic. No real fear. Just... adapted. Like muscle memory for a life I didn’t live.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, watching the kids disappear around a corner. “It’s not normal. No waking up lost. No real freakout. Just me, with a full team, knowing exactly what to do.”

  He glanced at Gardevoir.

  “You felt it too, didn’t you? Like we didn’t have to learn each other.”

  She didn’t speak, but she didn’t need to. The way her focus lingered said enough.

  Al looked up toward the distant skyline, where the radio tower stood tall and gleaming.

  “I’m not afraid of it. Just… starting to wonder what I’m missing.”

  He stood after a long pause.

  “Come on. We’ve got places to be.”

  (break)

  The days leading up to the Gym match took on a quiet pattern.

  Each morning, Al rose early, stopping at the same corner vendor for fresh bread and a cup of strong, bitter coffee. Gardevoir waited with him under the café awning while commuters passed. He never spoke much, but the vendor learned to recognize him quickly enough—no fuss, just a nod, and his usual order was ready.

  Afternoons were reserved for training. Not drills, not sparring—refinement. A park bench became their planning table. A fountain plaza their tracking ground. Gardevoir adjusted her control in public spaces, not hiding her presence but never overwhelming. Al followed with notes and pacing, watching her interactions with sound, space, motion.

  In the evenings, they walked.

  Through department store side streets, across bridges lit with soft lanterns, past outdoor food stalls that served dishes he’d never heard of but instinctively ordered. Sometimes they sat and watched street performers; once, Al gave a coin to a girl doing ribbon acrobatics with a Plusle and Minun. He didn’t smile often, but something about it kept him still for longer than usual.

  Once, near the greenhouse district, he paused in front of a display about the history of Johto’s Gym circuit. He read the entire plaque. Then moved on without comment.

  (break)

  Goldenrod’s nightlife glowed behind shuttered stores and train station platforms. The city wasn’t loud—it was constant. Al walked along the edge of a bike path, hands in his coat pockets, gaze distant.

  He passed trainers chatting on benches, Pokémon resting in the grass, a boy leaning against a lamppost practicing Poké Ball throws.

  No one paid him much attention.

  And for now, he preferred it that way.