"Can't you take it a little easier? Wanting to get stronger doesn't mean you have to push yourself this hard."
In the backyard, Julian was applying medicine to the battered Pawniard, whose body didn't have a single spot left untouched. If not for the medicine provided by the system, pushing its body to the limit like this would have likely caused hidden injuries even with conventional treatments.
Pawniard nodded.
Julian tapped it lightly on the head in mild frustration. "Now you've learned to just brush me off with a nod?"
That look—if it wasn't an attempt to brush him off, then he would take Metagross' surname.
"You're pushing yourself so hard, yet it hasn't sparked any sense of urgency in these guys."
He pointed to the Pokémon sprawled on the ground, sound asleep: Arcanine, Steelix, Aggron, and Dragonite…
In a team, no one minded if you slacked off—what they really worried about was when you started putting in extra effort.
Pawniard had now surpassed Lucario to become the number one overachiever in Julian's team. Even so, Dragonite and the others still felt no pressure.
Dragonite simply shrugged—the level gap was just too big to feel any real sense of competition.
"Your body is the foundation of everything."
Pawniard looked at Julian in confusion, as if it didn't quite understand what he meant.
"Celebi, come explain it to him."
After finishing applying the medicine, Julian called over Celebi, intending to test it a bit—otherwise this thing really spent the entire day eating, drinking, playing, living like a spoiled rich kid.
"Julian, I know this one, I know!"
Jirachi eagerly raised its hand.
"Alright then, Jirachi, you explain it to Pawniard."
Julian nodded, then glanced at Celebi, who visibly sighed in relief and perked up its ears, ready to hear the answer.
"It means that if you want to become stronger, you can't damage your body. That's what Julian meant, right?"
After Jirachi finished speaking, it looked at Julian expectantly.
"Mm, that's exactly what it meant. Here, this is your reward."
He took out fifty bucks and handed them to Jirachi.
Jirachi happily accepted the money—its little private stash had grown again. Soon, it could buy that new epic Gothitelle skin.
"Wait, you get money for answering correctly?"
Celebi was stunned, staring at the cash in Jirachi's hand, a pang of envy hitting it hard.
Its eyes began to shift as it tried to figure out how to persuade its good buddy Jirachi to split the money with it.
"Free~"
A Butterfree landed on Julian's head.
Julian's backyard was connected to a small forest and a lake. Tina had released quite a few Pokémon in those areas to enrich the local ecosystem.
However, most Pokémon didn't dare come near the backyard, because Julian's and Jake's Pokémon were all there, and the aura they emitted was enough to frighten most wild Pokémon.
But there were always exceptions.
This Butterfree was one of them. Maybe it was simply naïve or didn't understand the concept of danger—with strength not even reaching the Advanced-level, it actually dared to wander into the backyard.
After stopping briefly on Julian's head, it fluttered over and landed right on Aggron's head.
It truly seemed to have no fear at all.
---
East of Lake City lay one of Drakoria's largest ports, where thousands of massive cargo ships docked and departed daily. Not far from the port stood rows of enormous warehouses.
Inside, all kinds of goods were stored: food, daily necessities, construction materials, automobiles, gasoline, and various chemical supplies.
The staff and Pokémon working here numbered in the tens of thousands.
Every day, goods from these warehouses were shipped to every corner of the country.
Among them was an oil depot storing crude oil, gasoline, kerosene, lubricants, and jet fuel—a facility with extremely strict operational requirements.
Yet no matter how strict the protocols, oversights could still occur.
As a worker closed the warehouse door, a faint cracking sound suddenly echoed from inside.
Looking closely, a tiny fissure had appeared in the floor—a floor designed to withstand attacks from even Elite-level Pokémon.
As the crack expanded, a claw suddenly emerged from it.
Soon after, a Sandslash appeared in the middle of the warehouse.
Sandslash looked around in confusion, seeming utterly bewildered. 'Did I come to the wrong place?'
'Ugh, definitely the wrong place. It's all because it's so dark underground—couldn't even tell the direction. But man, this ground was tough—almost couldn't dig through.'
It quickly made up a reasonable excuse to cover the awkward truth: it was directionally challenged.
'As a Pokémon at the early-stage Pseudo-Champion level, how could I possibly be bad with directions?'
'But then again… what is this place?'
Curious, Sandslash wandered around until it reached a tank storing fuel. It lightly tapped the tank with its claw—only for the entire container to topple over, startling Sandslash.
'Run, run!'
Sandslash retreated to the hole it had just dug and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The fallen fuel container itself wasn't initially a problem, but as it rolled across the floor, it happened to get wedged right into the crack Sandslash had left behind.
The warehouse floor was made of a special material—not only incredibly durable but also equipped with a certain degree of self-repair capability.
And so, the crack began to close itself—even with the fuel container stuck in it, the repair process couldn't simply stop.
Under continuous pressure, the container began to deform.
Until—
POP!
The fuel container ruptured. Since there was no spark, it didn't explode, but gas began leaking out. However, the shockwave from the rupture caused surrounding stacked containers to topple over.
A domino effect had begun.
In no time, containers throughout the entire oil depot were bouncing and crashing into each other. And amidst the collisions, a tiny spark was produced.
That tiny spark instantly ignited the leaked fuel gas.
BOOM!!!
Flames instantly engulfed the entire warehouse.
Immediately after, piercing alarms blared, and the warehouse's built-in fire suppression systems activated, spraying vast amounts of water and foam.
The fire was starting to come under control—but under the intense heat, the other containers expanded from the temperature.
BOOM!!!
BOOM!!!!
At this moment, every resident of Lake City heard the deafening explosions. Many even saw the towering pillar of fire rising from the east.
In residential buildings closer to the port, windows were shattered by the blast waves. Some older structures tilted or cracked.
"What the hell?!"
Julian was startled by the sudden explosions, nearly dropping Jirachi, who was in his arms.
"It's a fire."
Seeing the towering flames in the east, he understood what was happening.
He was also located on the east side, though quite a distance from the port itself. From here, he could only see the flames and hear the blasts—the shockwaves couldn't reach this far.
'Thunder?'
A drowsy Arcanine cracked its eyes open and walked toward its doghouse. 'If it's going to rain, better sleep inside…'
*****
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