I caught a Pokémon

This feeling is like being recognized, subtle and warm.

After Xia You spoke, Ya Mi and Xiao Gang naturally stepped forward to congratulate her. Then, together with Xiao Wang, the group headed to a high-end restaurant as usual.

A lively celebration was, of course, inevitable.

……

Around 8 p.m., under the moonlight, the group headed towards the Pokémon Center along the now noticeably quieter streets.

The meal was enjoyed in a very harmonious and cheerful atmosphere, and everyone ate to their heart's content. So much so that when they left, everyone had a slightly bulging belly.

Seeing that it was still early and their stomachs were so full, Ash suggested that everyone go for a walk by the lake, but unfortunately, he was rejected by May and the others as soon as he said it.

Although there is a match tomorrow and they are opponents again, Xiaoyao, Xiaoguang, and Xiaowang still want to get together and chat about topics that girls talk about. Therefore, after rejecting Xiaozhi, they directly kicked Xiaozhi and Xiaogang out of the group chat.

As the three girls chatted and laughed and entered the Pokémon Center hand in hand, Ash and Brock stood there looking at each other in bewilderment.

He was about to say something to Xiaogang when he saw Xiaogang suddenly spot a beautiful older sister walking by in the distance. Without hesitation, Xiaogang's eyes lit up with big hearts, and he cheered as he followed her.

Ash stood there, and just then a gentle breeze blew by. He looked so pitiful, as if he had been abandoned by someone.

He could only turn his last hopeful gaze to Xia You.

Unexpectedly, Xia You also shook her head at him at this moment.

"I wanted to take a walk to digest my food, but I'm sorry, with such a beautiful moon, there's nothing to do with a little rascal."

After saying that, he put his hands in his pockets and walked away in another direction with a flourish. Behind him, Yami smiled and nodded to Xiaozhi, then followed Xia You's steps lightly, as if she were invisible.

Now, Ash is truly all alone.

"Tch, what a joke." Seeing that these people had all abandoned him in an instant, he snorted angrily, then glanced at Pikachu on his shoulder and grinned, "These guys are really something, but it's okay, as long as you're with me, that's enough."

That's right, for 10-year-old Ash, Pokémon are everything except his mother.

By the lake, Xia You walked ahead coolly, while Ya Mi followed quietly, like a timid little wife who didn't dare to breathe, looking very easy to bully.

But Yami didn't seem to care at all. Instead, her face turned even redder than before, and she wore a gentle smile, seemingly enjoying the atmosphere.

To be honest, Xia You felt that she had become an absolute scumbag, and had gone further and further down the path of being a scumbag.

With his keen insight, how could he not know anything about Yami's little tricks and her self-satisfied demeanor?

Even so, he didn't say a word, seemingly tacitly acknowledging her thoughts.

In this respect, he is undoubtedly selfish.

The two walked around the lake, chatting idly. After walking quite a distance and starting to head back to the Pokémon Center, they saw Ash standing in front of a railing, gazing at the dark lake.

Without stopping, just as she was about to pass by him and say hello, Yami seemed to have discovered something and pointed to the depths of Lake Lizhi.

"what is that?"

Hearing her slightly surprised voice, Xia You turned her head and saw a nearly transparent shadow emerge from the lake with a flash of white light. The shadow circled a few times in the air above the lake before disappearing back into the water.

The shadow was barely perceptible, especially in the darkness of night. If it hadn't been for the white light that first caught their attention, it would have been virtually impossible to spot it in such darkness.

Even when watching it, Xia You almost lost track of it several times. In the end, she only realized it had disappeared when it sank back into the water and created ripples.

Not only them, but even Ash saw this scene.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, and after confirming that he hadn't seen wrong, he belatedly shouted and hurriedly looked around.

They didn't find any Pokémon, but they spotted Xia You not far away.

Seeing Xia You looking at him, he couldn't help but shout, "Brother Xia You! Did you see that just now—"

"I saw it," Xia You interrupted him.

Ash spoke again: "I knew I wasn't mistaken. So tell me, is that a Pokémon—"

"Yes." Xia You interrupted him again.

Ash didn't care at all; his eyes lit up with excitement as he exclaimed, "Is it some rare Pokémon? Could it be a legendary one—"

“That’s right.” Xia You interrupted him for the third time.

Seeing that some people around them were curiously looking in their direction, Xia You was afraid that Xiao Zhi would say something else, so she quickly walked to his side, grabbed him with one hand, and walked towards the Pokémon Center.

Even if Xiao Zhi was slow-witted, he knew that Xia You was telling him not to speak. He looked at the people around him and couldn't help but smile awkwardly.

"Haha...haha, I think I just saw a Butterfree butterfly..."

This excuse, which seemed like a blatant attempt to cover up something, was far too obvious, especially in such a sensitive place as Lizhi Lake. As a result, it did nothing to dispel the doubts of the people around them; on the contrary, it made them even more curious. However, when they looked into the lake, they saw that it was as calm as a stagnant pool, with no movement at all.

After watching for a while, no one could figure it out, and people could only conclude that the little boy had indeed misread something.

Meanwhile, Xiao Zhi kept covering his mouth as Xia You led him back to their room.

By this time, Xiao Gang had already returned, and Xiao Yao and Xiao Guang, whose 'secret time for girls' had ended, had also said goodbye to Xiao Wang and were sitting in their room waiting for them to return.

There was a large, unopened pizza box in front of the three of them, and Xiaoyao was holding a phone, seemingly about to contact them.

However, before she could even make a phone call, Xiaoyao was stunned to hear the door open and watched them enter the room.

"You guys are back just in time! We ordered pizza and were just about to contact you when you showed up on your own." As she hung up the phone, Xiaoyao glanced at Xiaozhi, who was being carried back by Xia You, and couldn't help but laugh. "What are you two doing?"

After tossing Xiao Zhi back onto his own bed, Xia You clapped his hands as if he had done something insignificant: "I just picked him up on the way and brought him back."

Xiao Zhi ignored all of that. He sat up in bed with a thud, his excitement barely concealed, and shouted, "Do you know what we just saw?"

Hearing him say that, Xiaoyao and the other two couldn't help but be curious and all looked at Xiaozhi.

Xiao Zhi opened his mouth, about to say something, but then stopped abruptly. He rubbed his head, turned to look at Xia You, and gave her an embarrassed smile.

"By the way, Xia You, what was that just now?"

Xia You had just sat down, ready to listen to Xiao Zhi recount what had happened, when Xiao Zhi's unexpected turn of events almost made her back ache.

So you still don't understand what that is?

Yami, who was standing to the side, supported his body and then reached out a hand to rub his waist. Xia You glanced at her and, seeing that she seemed normal, let her do as she pleased. He just coughed lightly and looked at the people in the room.

"We just saw the God of the Lake."

"The God of the Lake!?"

The others were all surprised. Xia You nodded to them, about to say something more, but then saw that Xiao Zhi also had his mouth wide open, so she helplessly put her hand to her forehead.

He said, utterly speechless, "Wait, why are you surprised along with me? Didn't we just see it together?"

Xiao Zhi chuckled a little sheepishly.

"I was just playing along with you guys. Besides, although I guessed that the shadow was some kind of legendary Pokémon, I really didn't expect it to be the Lake God!"

Chapter 1018 Little Yao and Little Guang

The names of the three legendary Pokémon of the lakes were already familiar to everyone in the room.

After all, Xia You had already told them about the Three Lake Gods before, so they knew that there could only be one Lake God who could appear in Lake of Willpower, and that was Arknom, who was known as the 'God of Will'.

"Is it Azelf?" Hikaru asked in surprise. "You've seen it?"

Ash nodded quickly: "I saw it, but it disappeared after just one glance, but it should be it!"

Ash and his friends got into a heated discussion about Azelf, and even Dawn brought up seeing Mesprit at Lake Heartbeat. They got more and more excited as they talked, saying they would go back to that place to look for Azelf after the competition tomorrow.

Xia You listened quietly, without participating in the discussion.

He's not the same person he used to be. To him now, it's just a legendary Pokémon, nothing special. He's caught a whole bunch of them. The only special thing about it is that it's the only one he has.

But so what? I don't want to subdue it.

However, even so, Xia You couldn't help but think of the legendary Pokémon.

In the story, Team Galactic intends to use them to summon Dialga, the god of time, and Palkia, the god of space, in order to achieve their goals. Therefore, the appearance of this Azelf has put him on guard.

It seems the Galaxy team will be making a move soon.

He wasn't afraid of a direct confrontation with the Galactic Team; what he feared was that the Galactic Team would do something behind his back without his knowledge, leaving him no chance to react.

We still need to take preventative measures early; at the very least, we need to keep track of these people's movements...

Thinking of this, just to be on the safe side, he sent messages to A-Quan and Huo-Yan, asking them to keep an eye on things here as well.

But as soon as he put down his phone, he shook his head helplessly.

Huoyan and Aquan are very capable, but they are alone and there are still not enough people to do things, so they are a bit stretched thin.

But he didn't want to tell the Interpol about it, making it seem like he really knew everything in advance.

Forget it, why bother with all that?

In the end, he just smiled indifferently.

After all, he's not the only one in the world. Even if something really happens, can Cynthia and the Pokémon League just stand by and watch Sinnoh fall into chaos?

At that moment, his phone suddenly rang.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a text message from Rukia.

For some reason, he glanced at Xiaoyao and Xiaoguang with a guilty conscience, as if he was afraid that the two girls would notice something. Then, he took the opportunity to go to the bathroom and secretly took another look.

Actually, Rukia had already messaged him after her performance during the day, asking how his new song was.

Xia You, who hadn't been able to hear what she was singing at all, could only force herself to give her a compliment.

The matter should have been over, but unexpectedly she contacted him again.

However, after reading the contents, he realized that Rukia had something important to discuss with him.

Since Ryukia came to support her uncle, how could she not be with him? And if she were with him, how could she not tell her family what she had been doing these past two days?

And so, Mikoli learned of Xia You's arrival.

This was quite unexpected for Mikuri, who never imagined that Xia You, the champion of the Hoenn Tournament, would appear here.

However, he didn't investigate further, but simply had Ryukia ask Xia You if she intended to come as a special guest the next day.

After all, the sudden appearance of a champion, even if people in the Sinnoh region don't know him yet, will definitely bring more excitement to this year's Mikkuri Cup.

After figuring out the whole story, Xia You directly rejected Liu Qiya.

Just kidding, he's not a trainer coordinator and he doesn't want to be famous, so why would he want to get involved in this?

……

The second round of the Mikkelsen Cup match review officially began at 9:00 AM.

The rules and format remain the same; apart from the fact that the entire event is sponsored by Michael himself, it is no different from any other grand event.

However, before the battle began, the group assignments for the 16 players who would advance to the second round were announced.

Like other tournaments, the second round of the competition was divided into two halves. Before the final battle, the players in the two halves would not fight each other. Each half was further divided into two groups, with four players in each group competing to determine the top four and advance to the tournament.

Whether by luck or not, May, Dawn, Ash, and Nozomi were each assigned to different groups, avoiding an early battle. Dawn and May were even placed in opposite halves of the bracket, meaning that if all goes well, these two best friends will only face off in the final battle.

"What a great group assignment."

Even Yami couldn't help but sigh upon seeing this.

"That's good." Xia You smiled. "It looks like Xiao Zhi will face Xiao Guang first. I wonder who will be stronger, the confident Xiao Zhi or the equally in-form Xiao Guang."

Logically speaking, Ash should be stronger in a battle, after all, he is a trainer and has traveled for so long, so he has a natural advantage. But precisely because he is a trainer, he is somewhat out of place in such a grand tournament.

There's nothing we can do about it; the rules for fancy battles are different from those for regular battles.

In this respect, Xiaozhi is like a novice who hasn't played many matches. He has experience, but not much; he's just watched a few matches.

Therefore, it's hard to say who will win or lose.

Looking at the competition venue, compared to yesterday's simple performance stage, the organizers built another one overnight in the middle of the pool, allowing the two contestants to face each other from a distance, with only the wide pool in the middle visible. This meant that today's event could only focus on water battles.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Ash was the first to start the battle.

In the second round, he used the same Pokémon he used in the first round: the Swim-boosting Weasel. This is understandable, since battles in pure water are primarily fought with Water-type Pokémon, and trainers often don't have a large number of Water-type Pokémon.

Upon seeing the swim ring weasel, Xia You straightened her posture slightly.

This is a great opportunity to observe Ash's growth level. He also wants to see how Ash has grown since coming to Sinnoh. This can be considered a test for Ash in advance for the upcoming Lily of the Valley Conference. He can also see if Ash can pose any threat to him.

After all, Ash's growth was too fast, so he had to be on guard.

In this round, Ash's opponent is a man named Kaito, who looks like a rich young master.

His partner is a Lantern. It's hard to imagine the destructive power a Pokémon with both water and electricity could cause in a water field with only two places for the trainer to stand on.