The match was over.
Nova scooped Sprigatito off the field — three wins, no losses, first battle ever — and tucked her back into his arm. Behind him, he heard something that wasn't quite a sound. More of an absence of one. The quiet that follows when something a person had been holding onto for a long time finally lets go.
The green-haired Trainer had, somewhere between the Leech Seed and the final collapse of his Corphish, stopped believing he was going to become a Professional Trainer.
Nova collected his three hundred from him without ceremony.
The green-haired Trainer, apparently remembering who he was supposed to be, leaned in as he handed the notes over. "You'd be smart to leave that money. Walk away now and I'll let it go. Otherwise, I will find people."
Nova took all three notes from his hand mid-sentence.
"Sorry, what was that? I didn't catch it."
The green-haired Trainer raised his voice at Nova's retreating back. "You've got no idea what you're stepping into, kid!"
Nova glanced back. The look on his face was patient and very slightly pitying.
"If you want to come looking for trouble, you know where to find me."
"Fine." The green-haired Trainer straightened. Some things had to be settled on principle. "You've got nerve. At least leave a name."
"I don't hide my name." Nova shrugged. "I'm Koga. Top of the first-year Battle Department at Harmony City Pokémon Vocational School."
The crowd on the sideline absorbed this information and quietly recalibrated. A top Battle Department student from a Vocational School was on the professional track — someone who spent their days studying Pokémon combat under qualified instructors. Beating a street-level amateur with a side hustle in intimidation wasn't an upset. It was expected.
Nova walked away from the plaza at a comfortable pace.
As for whether the green-haired Trainer would go find Koga later — some student Nova had never met and had no connection to — that was a problem entirely between the two of them. Nova wished them both a productive conversation.
By the time he reached the riverside path, his hand was in his pocket counting the three notes, and a different thought had surfaced.
He hadn't had any real income in nearly two weeks.
He ran the numbers quickly. The bounty for capturing Taylor had been 1.2 million in total. Of that, 200,000 had gone toward buying Aresdra's Riolu, and 550,000 had covered the house. The past fortnight of backyard expansion and general living expenses had eaten through another 30,000 to 40,000 on top of that.
The team had grown. Infant Pokémon had specific nutritional needs — getting a young Pokémon's diet right wasn't optional, it was how you ensured they grew into what they were capable of becoming. Training accounted for roughly thirty percent of development. The other seventy percent was food.
He still had several hundred thousand in reserve. Enough to live comfortably for a year without doing anything. But sitting idle didn't feel right, and beyond the general principle of it, there was a concrete reason to want more coming in: Mort had promised him a capture slot for a Pseudo-Legendary down the line. Raising one of those properly was going to cost significantly more than a Torchic's monthly food bill.
He wasn't going to build a team like that by farming the occasional street battle for three hundred at a time.
Which was when Nova remembered the desert.
It had been almost a month since the ambush at Lune Town. Before leaving, Nidoking had set traps in the area. Those traps had a time limit, and if nothing had triggered them in the weeks since, they were getting close to expiring.
Taylor was gone. Whatever unspent funds had been stashed in or around Lune Town were sitting there unclaimed. As the person who had personally brought Taylor to justice, Nova felt a reasonable sense of obligation to ensure that money was not wasted. He was prepared to take on that responsibility.
He had been planning to go home and cook. He changed his mind on the spot.
He called out Corviknight, climbed up, and headed for the Pokémon Center in Harmony City's main commercial district.
Harmony City was compact by Alliance standards, and its geography — sitting at the edge of both the Tamar Desert and the Western Plateau — had shaped it into a city built around tourism rather than industry. Flight restrictions were relaxed compared to most urban centres, which meant Corviknight could move freely through the airspace without needing to divert to an air station. Nova made a note, not for the first time, that this was extremely convenient.
The city's Gym had been a low-ranked Class III facility for years, and a struggling Gym like that couldn't realistically absorb the volume of business that the city's Trainer population generated. The situation mirrored what Nova had seen in Forest City: Professional Trainers congregated at the Pokémon Center instead, which had quietly become the real hub of Trainer activity in the area.
Harmony City was larger and wealthier than Forest City, and the Pokémon Center reflected that. Even close to five in the evening, the Professional Trainer lounge on the third floor was packed.
A crowd was queued at the mission board, scanning the posted bounties. A separate line had formed at the service window, where non-Trainers were waiting to submit new contracts.
Nova wasn't here for missions. He bypassed both queues, found a seat at the small café tucked into the far corner of the lounge, ordered a cappuccino, and settled in to talk to whoever was around.
He didn't need to force a conversation topic. Sprigatito was sitting on his shoulder.
The response was immediate and decisive. A cluster of female Trainers nearby made eye contact with the small green cat, registered the large eyes and the faint, pleasant fragrance that drifted off her fur, and came over. The conversation that followed was thorough and enthusiastic, and Sprigatito received it with the composure of someone who had always expected exactly this level of attention.
See, Nova? her expression said clearly. This is how it should be. You need to prioritise me more and stop fussing over that dog.
Nova, who had been listening to this for weeks via body language, quietly released Growlithe from its Poké Ball.
The reaction was immediate. Hisuian Growlithe was rare everywhere in the world — and in the Norlandia Alliance, almost nobody had seen one in person. The group shifted focus. Growlithe accepted the attention with its usual unbothered confidence.
Sprigatito's response was immediate and internal and very loud.
Of course. Of course it's the dog. It's always the dog.
Nova used the next several minutes to get acquainted with the group and gather some local information. It was necessary. He had spent most of his Trainer career either in an isolated Gym posting or on a fast rotation through Goldenlight City. Harmony City was technically his home, but he had no real roots in its Trainer community. His reputation in Goldenlight City was — complicated — but at least it existed. Here, he was starting from nothing.
If he wanted to get anything done in Harmony City efficiently, he needed someone with local knowledge, or at minimum, a place to start.
The female Trainers had enjoyed the cat and the dog. It was only fair they shared what they knew.
After a few minutes of easy conversation about the city, the local Gym situation, and the state of the mission board, Nova finally asked the question he had come here for.
"Is there a reliable locksmith anywhere in Harmony City?"