After dinner.
Regarding the sudden addition of a new little life in the gym, all the Pokémon in the gym were very curious.
"Bui~"
Placing its chubby little paw gently on the small bump atop the dragon egg, Eevee could clearly feel the impact from inside the shell.
The little guy inside is really strong. Does it take this much effort to get out of the egg?
Although theoretically all Pokémon are creatures that hatch from eggs, Eevee had no such memory.
Of course, if it did have such memories, that would be quite bizarre...
"Lu!"
Lucario and Riolu exchanged glances and nodded at each other.
From the aura transmitted through the eggshell, they could clearly sense the vitality of the little one.
Once it hatches, it will definitely be a powerful Pokémon full of energy and potential.
"You all need to be careful. The act of breaking out must be done by the Bagon itself; it's very important for its future."
Seeing his and Cynthia's Pokémon gathered around the Bagon egg, Aiden, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, smiled and reminded them.
The principle behind Pokémon hatching from eggs should be similar to birds in his previous life. If they don't use their own strength to break out of the shell, their physical fitness will be much lower than other Pokémon of the same age from birth.
Such forced growth is something Aiden would never do.
"Gao..."
The only one far away, Miraidon, let out a response from outside the door.
As for what it meant, Aiden couldn't guess.
"By the way, Miss Geeta invited me to participate in the opening exhibition match three days after the start of the Master Tournament."
Cynthia, who was playing with her phone on the sofa, suddenly turned her head to look at Aiden in the kitchen.
"Opening exhibition match?"
Aiden repeated it once and quickly fell into thought.
It seemed that large-scale events in anime indeed always had an exhibition match before the tournament began, mainly to heat up the atmosphere to the maximum extent.
For example, before the Higaki Conference in the Unova region, the Unova League invited Cynthia and Caitlin as guests for the exhibition match.
(T/N: No idea what the Higaki Conference is lmao. Searched on Bulbapedia but couldn't find anything)
As for the Master Tournament, since all the Dragon-type masters were gathered together, it seemed reasonable to find a few who didn't have matches on the first day to warm up the field.
"That works, I'll go cheer you on then."
"But according to Miss Geeta, it seems that only I, Mr. Lance, and Mr. Drake don't have matches on the first day."
Cynthia's voice quickly came again.
"But this time, the Paldea League apparently wants to use double battles to heat things up, so they came to ask if I knew anyone I could contact who's currently in Paldea."
As soon as she finished speaking, Aiden paused washing his hands and instinctively looked outside.
Cynthia's eyes narrowed into slits, silently watching him with a smile.
"I feel like Miss Geeta is hinting that I should invite you."
Since the exhibition match was set to be a double battle, it would be difficult to coordinate with someone unfamiliar in just three days, so she could only try to find someone familiar as a teammate.
And among those familiar people in Paldea...
There was only Aiden.
As for Drasna, the Dragon-type Elite Four from Kalos who was also from Celestic Town, due to the large age gap, she wasn't within Cynthia's consideration.
She now theoretically only had two choices:
First, call her good friend Caitlin to come to Paldea;
Second, temporarily ask Aiden nearby to guest as a teammate.
How should she choose, it's so puzzling~
"Me as your teammate?"
Aiden was stunned and immediately shook his head repeatedly.
"Spare me, you monster trainers from the Masters Tournament fight, how can I, with only baby Pokémon, dare to participate?"
Aside from the Bagon still struggling in the egg, his team only had Eevee and Riolu waiting to evolve.
What about Miraidon?
That's not a Pokémon, that's a mode of transportation!
Let me fight against the two veteran Dragon-type Elites, Lance and Drake?
What a joke!
Even if it's an exhibition match, and both sides are just going through the motions, it still feels quite ridiculous...
"It seems so."
After Aiden said that, Cynthia quickly realized too.
Although Aiden's current potential was terrifying, being a trainer was also a profession that required time for growth.
Because Pokémon can't suddenly become many times stronger overnight, they can only improve gradually.
Therefore, just starting as a Gym Leader and beginning as a trainer from scratch, Aiden was indeed far behind in this aspect.
"But there are other ways."
Cynthia quickly thought of another method and looked at Aiden again.
"Perhaps I can help you borrow a Pokémon from Caitlin. Most of her Pokémon in the Battle Castle are pretty strong."
"Rental battle?"
Aiden quickly understood.
Rental battle.
As the name suggests, using borrowed Pokémon for battles.
This is a popular battle mode in various non-official facilities such as Battle Towers and Battle Frontier.
And as one of the leaders of the Battle Frontier, Cynthia's good friend Caitlin needed to prepare many types of Pokémon to face different challengers,
Therefore, her Pokémon reserve was quite formidable.
"It doesn't seem impossible?"
As long as he could handle the borrowed Pokémon, there shouldn't be any problem.
Aiden was somewhat tempted.
After all, it was an opportunity to compete on the same stage with these three great masters; he hadn't experienced such high-level actual combat yet.
However, there was another issue at hand—
"But given my love-hate relationship with Caitlin, it's unlikely she'd lend me one..."
Recalling that girl who was sweet to Cynthia but cold to him, as if he owed her money, Aiden immediately extinguished this idea.
Me, asking Caitlin for a Pokémon?
Even if I'm tied up and shipped back to Sinnoh, I won't do it!
After hearing Aiden's words, Cynthia couldn't help but smile.
"It's okay, I won't tell her that you're the one using it."
The relationship between these two was quite interesting; why were they so resistant to each other?
"If I go to borrow, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Then it's settled."
Aiden decisively nodded.
Given Caitlin's typical behavior towards Cynthia, as long as she agreed there was no way it could fail.
And when she finds out about this later, her expression should be quite amusing, right?
For some reason, Aiden suddenly felt a bit excited.
"So, we need to decide which Pokémon to borrow first."
"Do you know what Pokémon Elite Four Drake and Mr. Lance will use?"
Aiden turned his head and asked Cynthia.
Cynthia tilted her head, and after a short recollection, quickly replied:
"It seems... Salamence and Tyranitar?"
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