Hong Meiling Sleepwalks Through the Heavens

Hopping off the bus, Hong Meiling and Cynthia were immediately greeted with buildings upon buildings that seemed to host endless Pokémon battles.

“We’re here,” Cynthia smiled. “We’ve arrived at the Battle Zone.”

The Battle Zone, as the name suggests, is a sub-region in Sinnoh dedicated for Pokémon Trainers to battle against each other.

The town encompassing the Battle Zone is much larger than ordinary towns, with many Pokémon battle venues alongside Pokémon centers and various other stores.

The Battle Frontier is also located within this Battle Zone.

The Battle Frontier is flooded by the best Pokémon Trainers, who are open to accepting battles from players. After a player has won enough consecutive battles, they may challenge the Frontier Brain. Frontier Brains are incredibly tough to deal with, and some of them may even rival the likes of Champions themselves.

You may obtain various rewards by defeating the Frontier Brain. For example, defeating Sinnoh’s Frontier Brain awards you with commemorative prints. While useless, their mere presence proves that you are a strong Trainer.

Cynthia was interested in venturing through the Battle Frontier, but her goal now was to secure an ID for Meiling. The two beelined it towards the port near town, and left on a ship.

After a day’s worth of sailing and Meiling sun-tanning on the deck, the ship arrived at Veilstone City. The two searched up restaurants to have lunch at, and later, the duo boarded a bus straight towards Celestic Town.

It was already dusk when the two stepped off the bus.

Celestic Town may be small, but its sceneries are magnificent. It is purported that Celestic Town is the oldest town in Sinnoh, and predated Sinnoh itself. The town seemed to radiate a nostalgic, historical, and quaint atmosphere, welcoming the two to town.

Hand-in-hand, the two headed straight towards the Historical Research Center, where Professor Carolina worked.

Cynthia had sent a text earlier to her grandmother, so she was already waiting for them with open arms.

“Oh, Cynthia! How was your trip?” Professor Carolina greeted warmly as she took Cynthia’s hands in hers, before turning to Meiling. “And this must be your friend that you made during your trip.”

Professor Carolina is about 55 years old and held a dignified, educated aura. Of course, she is extremely fond of her granddaughter.

“Her name is Hong Meiling,” Cynthia introduced. “And, uh…”

Cynthia leaned into her grandmother’s ear and whispered a couple of her concerns.

She didn’t want Meiling’s ‘secret’ to be exposed to everybody in their vicinity, considering that they were still in public. After all, this center also doubles as a museum, and many tourists roamed about taking various photos of the exhibitions.

Meiling tilted her head, acting as if she didn’t hear what Cynthia had whispered, but with her enhanced senses as a youkai, she could hear everyone single word as crisp as the air she was breathing.

Half human… half Pokémon…? F-forget it. It’s harder to explain. You do you, Cynthia, Meiling thought, speechless.

Likewise, Professor Carolina displayed an expression of disbelief. As a Professor, she too, has read on some historical documents about the copulation of humans and Pokémon. She has performed greater research, and believes that this union played a great role in history.

Professor Carolina might feel a little surprised, but she could believe it. What she couldn’t believe is that Cynthia insisted that Meiling must be a descendant of Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, or even Arceus!

If it wasn’t her granddaughter speaking, she wouldn’t believe them.

Her grandmother nodded at Meiling with a smile before turning both herself and Cynthia around, with their backs turned towards Meiling, “You’re telling me that she defeated Heatran all on her own?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes! And it didn’t seem like she put in much effort either!”

Professor Carolina nodded – her granddaughter would never lie to her. Although it is unlikely that she is a descendant of Mythical Pokémon, she might still be a hybrid.

No matter how strong a human is, it is impossible to become supernaturally strong.

Finally, Cynthia expressed to her grandmother about Meiling’s need for identification. Professor Carolina simply smiled and nodded, “Well, I do know a few people…”

‘Few’ does not describe her reach throughout Sinnoh. She has a wide network, and although she is no politician, she is still holds an extremely good reputation in town.

Professor Carolina then took Meiling to the Town Center to help her apply for an ID.

With Professor Carolina around, Meiling’s ID took almost no time to be finished. Meiling smiled as she eyed her shiny new ID card in front of her.

Then, Professor Carolina took her to the Pokémon League Center, and helped her to register as a Trainer. While this was happening, Professor Carolina slipped Meiling a Pokédex.

They have been nothing but helpful and kind towards me, Meiling thought, grateful. Imagine if I didn’t bump into Cynthia that fateful day! I would still be wandering around on that damn mountain today!

On the way back to the Historical Research Center, Meiling’s eyes caught an eye-catching notice on a billboard in the distance.

[Celestic Town’s Pokémon Championship Will Soon Begin – Trainers Are Welcome To Sign Up And Participate!]

“You’re interested?” Professor Carolina caught her looking at the billboard and smiled. “The Mayor of Celestic is organizing it, and he has been spreading the news across all of Sinnoh. I think many Trainers will join, and if you want to, you could try and join.”

This is a private competition, but as the legendary town of Sinnoh, Celestic Town holds a special status, and many Trainers will come here for a ‘pilgrimage’ of some sort, perhaps to bask in the history of the town. With news spreading all across Sinnoh, the competition might see an overwhelming amount of participants.

Squinting her eyes, however, she could read the fine-print on the billboard, which stated that all Trainers must have at least one Gym Badge to qualify for registration.

The competition adopts a traditional elimination-based system. Only one Pokémon is allowed to be used in the early stages of the competitions, and duos may be utilized from the quarter-finals onward.

The Top 8 will receive rewards – the Champion will receive 8,000 Pokémon Dollars; the runner-up receives 4,000; the 3rd and 4th place receive 2,000 each, and the 5th to 8th place receive 1,000. It may seem like a small amount of money, but it could be used in many ways.

Meiling frowned. She did want to participate, but she had no Gym Badge on her.

Four more days until the registration deadline, she huffed, looking at the billboard with determined eyes. As long as I get a Gym Badge within the next four days, I can join the competition!

Naturally, she wants to obtain this at the closest gym possible, which is located at Veilstone City.

Earlier, Cynthia and Meiling took a bus from Veilstone to come to Celestic, and it took a decent amount of time before they arrived.

Okay, I’ll go to Veilstone, win the Gym Badge, and come back just in time for the tournament! I should probably tell Cynthia my plans. She’s still waiting for me at the Research Center.

It was wishful thinking to expect Cynthia to continue accompanying her on her journey. Cynthia’s original plan was to challenge the Sunyshore Gym Leader, but to help Meiling, she changed her plans and came back to Celestic instead. Now that Meiling has an ID and is a registered Pokémon Trainer, Cynthia can probably continue with her original plan, and the both of them will go their separate ways.

If there was no tournament, Meiling might have followed Cynthia to Sunyshore. However, she wanted to experience the thrill of a Pokémon Battle.

And I can’t just rely on Cynthia to be my sugar mommy. If I get Top 8, I might just get my first taste of money in this world!

Of course, Cynthia may be interested in this tournament instead. It may be smaller in scale compared to an official tournament, but with Cynthia’s aspirations of becoming the best Trainer in Sinnoh, she might just join.

Back at the Research Center, Meiling conveyed her plans to Cynthia.

“I guess I am a little interested in the tournament,” Cynthia thought slightly.

Cynthia knew this was happening a long time ago, considering The Mayor’s publicity campaign to spread the word about the competition. At the time, she was more interested in capturing Heatran.

On their way back in the bus, Cynthia’s mind was thinking about the competition. Even if Meiling didn’t bring it up, she might have informed Meiling herself.

“If you join, we might become opponents,” Meiling joked.

“Surely, you’re not going to launch yourself at me,” Cynthia laughed.

But as soon as she said that, Cynthia thought of the Heatran in Meiling’s pocket, and immediately felt as if the Heatran was standing on top of her shoulders.

Starting from the quarterfinals, a Pokémon Trainer may utilize two Pokémons in their battle. Even if she summoned two Pokémon, knowing that Meiling only has one, it will still be an uphill battle – hell, if she faced Meiling earlier on, where Pokémon Battles are only restricted to a one-on-on battle, it might be miserable.

She didn’t know how good Meiling was at directing her Pokémon, but it is Heatran. Even with simple instructions, Heatran might just tear the entire place down.

After hearing Meiling’s plans, Cynthia thought of following Meiling to Veilstone to get her first Gym Badge at Veilstone Gym, and advise Meiling on how to beat the Gym Leader. However, remembering that Meiling has Heatran in her pocket, she simply nodded to herself and smiled. The Gym Leader of Veilstone Gym is not very strong anyways.

“Sorry, Meiling, but this might be where we say goodbye,” Cynthia gave a bittersweet smile to her new friend. “I need to train my Pokémon for the competition, and you need to go get your Gym Badge at Veilstone.”

“What are you apologizing for?,” Meiling smiled and nudged her with her shoulder. “You and Professor Carolina have helped me so, so much. I can only feel grateful to the both of you.”

The two spent their remaining time together at the center browsing through the various historical displays, and Meiling stayed at the center overnight. The next day, she was ready to leave after a simple breakfast.

“Take this,” Cynthia pushed, stuffing her credit card into Meiling’s hands. “You need money to go to Veilstone, and you might be staying there overnight. If you want to, and I highly recommend this, but I would suggest not taking the bus.”

“Why?”

“There are many wild Pokémon along the way, and you can try to tame them” Cynthia explained. “You may have a Heatran, but surely, one Pokémon is not enough for you, right? I’ll get you some Poké Balls too.”

Meiling was speechless at how generous Cynthia was being, and gave her a big hug.

Finally, Cynthia came back and handed Meiling a satchel, which contained 5 Pokémon Balls, a map of Sinnoh, a bag of sliced bread, several slices of cheese, a jar containing about 300ml of Pokémon food, a Pokémon bento, and three Sitrus Berries.

Sitrus Berries are berries that can be fed to a Pokémon to heal it of its injuries.

The satchel was considerably bulky with the things Cynthia had packed for her friend. Taking the satchel, Meiling thanked Cynthia, then left the Historical Research Center and embarked on the road towards Veilstone City.