Chapter 146: Miori: Do Challengers Reproduce Automatically?
[VIP Chat Group]
[Professor Sycamore]: Wait, wait, wait, wait! What did Miori just say? Mega Evolution can be forcibly activated?! Without requiring a bond?!
[Professor Sycamore]: H-heh. Hehehe. I must not be fully awake yet.
[Assistant Sophie]: Professor, you need to calm down!
[Diantha]: Professor Sycamore’s faith in his academic theories is visibly crumbling.
[Steven]: What do you call this? A scientific revolution. The old theory has been overturned, and a new era has arrived.
[Professor Sycamore]: This isn’t a revolution! It’s an earthquake! My entire theory of Mega Evolution is founded on the bond between a Trainer and their Pokémon! Yet this Ampharos had no Trainer and still managed to Mega Evolve!
[Clemont]: From a practical perspective, although this method of forced activation can trigger Mega Evolution, the price is that the Pokémon completely loses control. Therefore, the core of Professor Sycamore’s theory—the importance of a bond—hasn’t actually been disproven. If anything, this incident proves it from the opposite direction.
[Professor Birch]: That’s simply how academia works. Sometimes you spend decades researching something, only for someone else to approach it from another angle and dismantle your theory.
[Professor Oak]: Those of us involved in research will all have to face such a moment eventually.
The video continued playing.
After completing her deduction, Miori walked over to Ampharos and held a Poké Ball in front of it.
"Running away won’t solve anything. The Mega Stone is still inside your body. Unless you learn how to coexist with it, you’ll lose control again the next time you encounter similar energy interference."
Miori looked directly into its eyes.
"And there might not be a second me around to help you next time."
Ampharos looked at the Poké Ball in front of it, then at Miori.
Eventually, it reached out and touched the Poké Ball.
Its body transformed into red light and was drawn inside.
The Poké Ball shook twice.
Click.
The capture was successful.
Miori attached Ampharos’s Poké Ball to her waist, adjusted the brim of her detective hat, and turned toward Officer Jenny.
"Officer Jenny, the chain of evidence is now complete. Combined with the equipment left inside this factory, this should be enough to open a formal investigation, correct?"
Officer Jenny put away her notebook and nodded decisively.
"It is. The police will take over the subsequent investigation. Gym Leader Miori, I’ll submit your investigative report to the League Prosecutor’s Office as key evidence."
"That’s good."
Miori removed her detective hat, stuffed it into her bag, and rubbed beneath her eyes.
"I’m exhausted. I’m going home to catch up on sleep."
After saying that, Miori pushed the empty wheelchair out of the factory.
She continued for approximately twenty meters before suddenly stopping and looking down at it.
"I brought the wheelchair out. Where’s Ampharos?"
She turned toward Luxio.
Luxio pointed its tail toward the Poké Ball at Miori’s waist, which was still trembling faintly.
"...Oh. I caught it."
Miori expressionlessly turned the wheelchair around and began pushing it back.
"I need to return this. I borrowed it from the police station beforehand."
Emolga covered its face with its wings and released an exceptionally disdainful cry.
"Emolga..."
[Regular-Seat Chat Group]
"Hahahahaha! Her deduction was so cool, but then she immediately turned back into a forgetful idiot!"
"Miori: Where’s my Ampharos? Luxio: On your waist. Miori: Oh."
"Ampharos inside the Poké Ball: Perhaps pressing that button was a little too impulsive."
[VIP Chat Group]
[Dawn]: I was just thinking that Miori looked incredibly cool today, but she couldn’t maintain it for even three seconds!
[Valerie]: Her deduction used up all her brain cells. Now her CPU is running with nothing left to process.
[Wallace]: I can just barely understand forgetting Ampharos, but didn’t she notice that the wheelchair had suddenly become much lighter?
[Skyla]: That absentminded side of her really resembles Elesa~
[Elesa]: Don’t drag me into this.
[Skyla]: Request denied. Best friends exist to be dragged into things.
[Elesa]: ???
[Diantha]: Sister, you and I are kindred spirits!
[Skyla]: Let’s be friends, sister~
[Diantha]: Absolutely.
[Elesa]: ...
[Cynthia]: ...
The video continued playing.
It was already three thirty in the afternoon when Miori returned to Nimbasa Gym.
The wind blew in from Route 4, carrying the sweet scent of Berries growing beside the road.
Miori took a deep breath, removed her detective coat, and draped it over her arm.
The sky above Nimbasa City was clear and cloudless.
"Aah~ It’s finally over."
She stretched her arms high above her head, her long black hair swaying gently in the wind.
"The winds are unusually restless today, but the air near home tastes sweet."
Emolga raised its head from atop hers and sniffed the air as well.
"Emolga?"
"Yes, exactly that scent."
Miori closed her eyes and nodded blissfully.
"I’m going to spend the rest of today lying in bed, eating potato chips, and reading comics. I don’t care who comes looking for me!"
"Emolga, Emolga!"
Emolga raised one paw in agreement.
"See? Emolga agrees too."
Miori adjusted the bag on her back and walked toward the Gym with light, cheerful steps.
Then she turned the street corner.
One glance revealed a long line stretching outside Nimbasa Gym’s main entrance.
It began at the Gym doors, continued all the way to the corner, turned down the next street, and disappeared beyond her field of vision.
Miori’s smile instantly froze.
"Why?"
She took a deep breath.
"Why do I still have to deal with this after returning to the Gym?"
Miori pointed painfully toward the line extending down the street.
"Do these people possess some kind of supernatural ability that allows them to reproduce automatically whenever I’m away?"
Miori massaged her cheeks once more before accepting the reality she couldn’t escape.
She openly walked to the front entrance and unlocked the Gym doors beneath the unified stares of all the challengers.
"Form an orderly line. One at a time."
Her voice had already returned to its usual cold Gym Leader tone.
[VIP Chat Group]
[Dawn]: Hahahahahahaha! The challengers reproduce automatically! Miori’s complaints are so adorable!
[Valerie]: I took a screenshot of her expression. It could become a reaction image—The Gym Leader’s Despair.jpg.
[Skyla]: The breeze near home may be sweet, but the line outside the front door is bitter.
[Lorelei]: Miori, the overworked wage-slave Gym Leader.
[Bertha]: She’s still young. Accepting more challenges is a good thing. It will allow her to accumulate experience and temper her state of mind.
[Volkner]: I’ve said it before. Being a Gym Leader isn’t a job fit for a human being.
[Flint]: What? You closed your Gym and started handing out Badges without battling people! How can you say that with a straight face?
[Volkner]: I can say it precisely because I gave up. How could I possibly understand how exhausting the job is if I had never given up first?
[Flint]: That makes so much sense that I can’t even argue with it.