A timid, blond-haired man in a waistcoat timidly emerged from behind the bar.
This annoyed me a little.

“Aipom’s not here, Natu … He – um – he’s gone for now …”
I really liked this, just because it felt right for Lisa to be missing her Pokemon right now. It was pretty fulfilling even if I wish that she could get her Pokes back.

“God, I remember coming here,” Lisa said, and she nostalgically recounted the story of how she, Hiro and Kris had participated in the contest, despite the fact that both Gavin and Marina had heard it several times before.
This one also felt good, probably because it captured what I feel that I do all the time.

Sorry I didn't comment on the last one, which I enjoyed. It also helped me to truly "see" the Gavin-Lisa relationship in a better light and cleared a few things up for me.

I'm still in awe of you writing skills, just as I was in the first chapters when you were building tension, but one of my problems is that I can only mostly remember the chapters (all 400-500 pages of them) and everything that happened, so sometimes I miss some of the allusions to past chappies. I do think that your characters are growing in a realistic way (although you do have a lot of them, which must be hard), and you have done a good job of characterizing many of the characters.

Overall, another good chapter from a long string of 'em. Can't wait for the next ones. That's all.

P.S. Congrats on 1,000!