Pokemon : The Master of Dragon-Types

Chapter 471 471: 471. Aftermath of victory

Jacob had won.

It took a moment for the crowd to process it. The match had ended, the referee had made the call, and still people stood there blinking as though waiting for something to contradict what they'd just seen.

When they finally accepted it, the reaction was everything at once — surprise, noise, and the particular energy of a crowd that had just witnessed something it hadn't quite believed was possible.

Looking back at the full match, though, the result wasn't so hard to explain. A near-king-level Dragapult had defeated a Houndstone. Framed that way, it almost sounded expected.

"Jacob! Yes!" Kyle's voice cut above the rest of the crowd, louder and more unrestrained than anyone around him. He looked like he'd won the match himself, laughing with his whole body, bouncing on his heels.

Nearby, Julia smiled too — but quieter, and with something behind it.

She hadn't expected this. Two months. That was all the time that had passed, and Jacob had already reached the point where he could beat a king-level trainer in a one-on-one singles match. Yes, Houndstone wasn't ideally suited to singles battles, and the Z-Move had been a decisive factor. But it was still a Pokémon of peak Heavenly King-level strength.

Her own Dragonite — even pushing to its absolute limit, even with a Z-Move — wouldn't have been able to take Houndstone down. She knew that honestly.

Jacob had already pulled ahead of her by a distance she hadn't noticed growing.

She felt something solidify in her chest. Not jealousy — something more useful than that. Resolve.

Tomorrow's headlines were easy enough to predict. A near-king-level trainer, barely out of his first year at university, defeating a seasoned king-level trainer — that was news anywhere. Add the history between Jacob and Dawson, and it became a story. Dawson's agency would feel the fallout. That was the point.

It was the first part of Jacob's plan — damage Dawson's reputation publicly, visibly, and undeniably. The second part was already in motion. Sylvia would pull the agency's internal data, and when that went public, the damage would be permanent.

From somewhere in the stands, a voice rang out above the cheering.

"Jacob, I love you!"

Then another: "Marry me, Jacob!"

Julia and Nina both went very still for a moment.

"Absolutely shameless," Amira muttered, then turned to Julia with sudden energy. "Come on — let's go say hello. Let them see who actually matters."

"Leave it." Julia shook her head, watching Jacob disappear into the press of people surrounding him. "He'll be busy for a while. We should head back."

Amira looked at the crowd, then back at Julia, then sighed dramatically. "Fine. It's late anyway." She turned to Kyle, who was still practically vibrating beside her. "You — come on, take us back to campus."

"On it," Kyle said, grinning.

Jacob made his way backstage.

Nina was already there, waiting. The moment she saw him come through, she stood and walked over, a wide smile breaking across her face, her eyes bright and curved with warmth.

"You did it, Jacob," she said. "You actually beat a king-level trainer."

"It went well." Jacob smiled back, though his tone was light. Truthfully, he hadn't been certain of the outcome going in — a draw would have satisfied him. "Come on, it's late. Let's go."

"Mm."

That night, the online channels worked overtime.

Content creators and battle analysts pulled clips, ran commentary, broke down every exchange between Dragapult and Houndstone frame by frame. The general conclusion was the same across all of them: yes, the Z-Move had been the turning point — but Dragapult's performance throughout the match had been extraordinary in its own right. The Z-Move had finished it. Dragapult had earned it.

Jacob slept through most of it.

Dawson did not sleep at all.

Kyle, back in his dormitory, did not sleep either — but for entirely different reasons. He had found the school forum and planted himself in the middle of every argument he could locate.

"Jacob just doesn't bother with the school ranking matches. They're beneath him at this point. He fights king-level trainers."

"Any of you critics want to tell me the last time a freshman beat a king-level trainer? I'll wait."

When Jacob woke the next morning, sunlight was already well into the room.

The late night had pushed his morning training aside entirely. He reached for his phone and found it filled with messages and missed calls — more than he had patience to count. He replied to the ones that mattered, splashed water on his face, and headed out into the city.

The hotel was the kind that didn't need to advertise. Quiet lobby, thick carpet, the sort of place that understood its clientele valued discretion.

Jacob settled into a chair across from Dawson.

Dawson looked like a man who had been awake for a very long time. His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw set. Whatever sleep deprivation had done to his body, it hadn't softened the bitterness in his expression — if anything, a night of stewing had sharpened it.

"What do you want?" His voice was flat and controlled. "If this is about humiliating me further, you've already done that."

Jacob looked at him evenly. "Dawson Braddock." He let the title sit for a moment. "I don't know what Jorge and the others offered you. But I'm telling you clearly — if you stay on that sinking ship, you go down with it. Whatever they promised you once they crack the secret of Gigantamax... do you actually believe they'll get there? Are you really betting everything on that?"

Dawson's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes did.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "They never approached me."

Jacob raised a hand, cutting him off calmly. "You don't have to deny it." He reached into his jacket and placed a printed document on the table between them. "Take a look at that first."

Dawson picked it up.

His face changed as he read. The colour drained slowly, and by the time he reached the bottom of the page, there was a faint sheen of cold sweat at his temple.

It was his agency's client list. The past month, complete and accurate.

"You stole this." His voice came out harder than he intended, covering the alarm underneath. "That's illegal."

"Stolen?" Jacob smiled, shaking his head. "Someone handed it to me. I'm showing it to you as a courtesy — so you understand where things stand. Because next time, it won't land on a table between us. It'll be in a news article. And everything you've spent years building — the agency, the reputation, the trust your clients placed in you — that all disappears in a morning."

Dawson set the list down carefully. When he looked up, the coldness in his eyes had shifted into something harder to name.

"What exactly are you asking me to do?"

Jacob stood. "It's straightforward. I take a stake in your agency, and you come over to my side. It's not too late to change course — but this is the last time I'm offering." He paused, then added: "There's one specific thing I need from you. Report them to the Pokémon Association."

He held Dawson's gaze and continued, his voice quieter now: "The way I see it — they pressured you to surveil and track me. You refused. You held out as long as you could. And when the pressure became too much, you did the right thing and reported them. That's the story. It's a good one. And it happens to be the one that keeps you standing when everything else comes down."

Dawson was quiet for a long moment.

Then: "I agree."