"Drea drea," Wisp chirped, nuzzling her head into my lap. The brush from her grooming kit passed through her ghostly hair with minimal friction, though it seemed to be doing the job.

I smiled, rubbing her tiny back. "I'm glad you like it. I assume that's a go-ahead to pick up more in the future?"

The ghost type grooming kit that Hana had picked up for me was doing work. It had come with a package of special Pokemon biscuits, a reusable brush, a moisturizing spray, a tiny trimmer, a bottle of conditioner, and a piece of adhesive paper that I hadn't yet figured out what it was for. I had very smartly hidden the biscuits from Wisp before she could devour the entire package, though she'd still gotten more than enough to make her happy.

"Dreaaaaaa…..," my ghost murmured happily. The moisturizing spray had settled into her hair, leaving her soft and smelling like incense.

She wasn't the only Pokemon having a great time. "Bulba bul," Rafflesia sounded off from Hana's lap.

Hana couldn't hide her smile. "Yeah, these weren't the worst idea."

After my talk (or lack thereof) with Yuji yesterday, I'd passed out from all the training and ended up missing dinner. Since I hadn't caught back up with Hana before she went to bed, we were using the morning to test out the grooming kits that I'd had Hana pick up.

It was still early enough in the day that the sun was not fully over the horizon, leaving streaks of orange and purple across the blue-grey sky. We had situated ourselves at a pair of benches outside the Pokemon Center and across from the riverbanks. It was pretty cold out, but we were both wearing our thick jackets from Mt. Moon. The Pidgey were still waking up in the trees and every once in a while we would hear their chirping. Our two small Pokemon were in our laps while Paige and Artis played down by the river. It was peaceful, if a bit chilly.

"Well, thank Lester," I murmured absentmindedly. "He put me onto them after I asked how he got Espi to evolve so quickly."

"I'll have to do that." Hana's hesitant words made me pause my brushing to steal a glance. Her lips were pursed in a slight frown.

Oh.

It hadn't occurred to me until this moment, but I was just realizing that Hana might not be Lester's biggest fan. After all, even though it was really on me, he had been my accomplice in going behind her back. Sure, they'd gotten off on the right foot in the canyon, but at no point did either of them really interact in Mt. Moon.

With how strained the vibes had been with Hana lately, I decided to change the subject. "Oh hey, did we decide who's going to sign us up for the gym? I have ther-" I stopped to correct myself. "I mean, I have to go see somebody on that side of town later anyway."

Hana raised her eyebrow, giving me a careful glance. Her brain was parsing what I had meant to say, and understanding quickly bloomed on her face. Her frown softened. "No, I don't think we did. Though-"

"That would not be the best idea," a quiet voice approached us from behind.

Both Hana and I jumped in our seats, much to the chagrin of our pampered Pokemon. Wisp angrily nibbled on my finger so that I would start brushing again. Standing behind us was Yuji, dressed in his exercise clothes, with Despereaux faithfully at his heel. He chuckled slightly at our reactions.

I couldn't help but feel weird. The vibes after he'd left me hanging in the hallway yesterday were off. I'd texted Hana and Amy about it, but neither were sure what was up with him, or at least they hadn't elected to share that information with me.

"Whoa," I breathed out. "Damn, Yuji, I didn't see you there."

"I apologize, I had only just arrived," he said, inclining his head. "I was seeking you both out for that purpose." Yuji held up his trainer card, as well as a familiar one that belonged to Amy. "And, as I was saying, I don't believe you should wander on your own too much in this city."

Hana nodded. "Yeah, I meant to mention this after I went shopping yesterday, but, yeah. People here are still pissed about what you did in Pewter."

I took a second, but even I wasn't dense enough to miss her meaning. "The flag thing…," I muttered. I tilted my head in confusion. "But, like, people haven't been mad about that online for a while."

Yuji sighed. "I suspect that Cerulean in particular carries a grudge for other reasons. Both Mick Starsky and Portia Cervelo are from here. Given your… …history, their fan bases are not likely to react well to your presence.”

"As we've mentioned a lot, Kanto is really big on tribalism and local pride," Hana elaborated. "Given that they’re two of the highest-ranked rookies this year, it makes sense that their hometown wouldn’t like you."

"Oh." I couldn't help but feel a weight in my stomach, and some words that I'd heard yesterday started to make sense.

'We should challenge him, then. Bring him down a few notches.' The words of those guys from the Pokemon Center played in my head again. 'He should know better than to pull that in this town.'

I'd assumed then what I'd been assuming just moments before, that they were just mad about the Pewter Gym, but it made a lot more sense if they felt personally attacked by how I’d acted at and after Mick’s interview. It was kind of stupid, but I kind of understood it.

"I guess that explains what I overheard yesterday." I shrugged. When both Hana and Yuji's eyes went wide, I quickly elaborated. "It's nothing too bad, I promise. It was just some guys who were pretty aggressively talking about me. I didn't do anything about it, but- hey, wait." My understanding very quickly morphed into irate confusion. "What the heck did I do to piss off Portia? I've never even met her. Also, how do you guys know this, but I don't?"

Hana and Yuji exchanged looks and simultaneously held up their phones. Yuji let out a breath. "Derek, I thought you were keeping up with your social media now?"

"Yeah, and I've heard like nothing about Portia having beef with me."

"Really?" Yuji deeply frowned. "It's all over the Cerulean forums. Especially since she did that interview on Conner and TJ. Well, I wouldn’t say the interview was ill-intentioned, but it did not paint you in a favorable light."

My friend started flipping through his phone to find it, but the sinking feeling in my gut returned. "So uh, these forums… …you guys have mentioned them in the past…"

It was Hana's turn to sigh. "Yes, they're one of the most important tools for trainers out there. There are forums for everything from route info to a trainer's battle history. And you were supposed to be checking yours more often."

"Hey!" I said indignantly. "I've been checking my @s like you guys told me to. I didn't see anything about Portia or a Conner and TJ…" My shoulders fell and my hand snaked its way up to my forehead. "Wait. Conner and TJ wouldn't happen to be a radio show, would it?"

Hana and Yuji exchanged looks, again, and this time they both sighed. "Yes," they said simultaneously.

Yuji held up his phone, showing the episode in question. "Portia was on it before we went into Mt. Moon. She gives quite an unfavorable review about you in the second half."

"Ah." Heat flushed my neck and cheeks as I realized where I'd messed up. "I, uh, I kinda skimmed the first few minutes the other day." And it was true. I'd been sitting in the Pokemon Center going through all my messages and I'd disregarded the talk show without thinking about it twice.

At this point, Yuji and Hana were saying more words in their side eyes and glances at each other than had been in the contract I'd had to fill out yesterday. It didn't feel great, but I had no legs to stand on here. They'd both tried to impress the importance of social media onto me multiple times and I hadn't given it the time it deserved. Before I started feeling too guilty, I reminded myself of my second rule.

#2 - Reflect and Adapt

I needed to take this to heart and genuinely fix my behavior. It wouldn't do to just feel bad.

I sat up attentively, causing Wisp to groan again. "Okay, yeah," I said, "thanks for the info. Cerulean City is not full of Derek fans. I will keep that in mind."

Yuji's pondering face shifted to one of surprise. "Well," he said quickly and taken aback, "as I mentioned before, just try not to wander around on your own too often, at least not near the gym. I would say that it shouldn’t go farther than a battle or two, but…"

"Heard," I nodded. "I'll take the long way around to get to my thing, then. And I'll try and stick around the Pokemon Center and my training area when I'm by myself."

As much as I was talking a big game, there was a little ball of frustration in my stomach. Not at my friends, but at myself for getting into this situation. I wanted so badly to head to the center of town and figure something out, maybe find a way to resolve this weird relationship that I was developing with this town, but I couldn’t pursue that line of thought without ignoring my friends.

"Good," he said hesitantly. Yuji looked at me like I'd stepped out of the Twilight Zone. I couldn't blame him for that, either. I wasn’t acting like myself. "I appreciate you accepting my advice."

"Yeah, no problem man. At the end of the day, you're just looking out for me."

Yuji's confusion didn't go away, but he gave me a different kind of smile than he'd been giving lately. Even before Mt. Moon- Honestly, ever since our talk at the Pewter Gym, Yuji and I had been getting more and more distant. It wasn't singularly on either of us, but I could feel my part in it, especially since Hana had helped me self-reflect. I was bad at the little things, like listening when he tried to give me advice.

That needed to change. I wasn't going to make any of my friends feel the way I'd made Hana feel again. Last night especially had shaken me, and even though I couldn't do anything about all of the problems he was dealing with, I could do the little things better.

I did my best to return Yuji's smile as I handed him my trainer card. He took it and Hana's and nodded gratefully.

"Well, I'll be off," he said. "After we get our challenges figured out, Despereaux and I are going to go see someone and then train a bit more. If you need us we'll be on Route 24."

“Oh, hey,” I paused him before he was able to take off. Yuji gave me a concerned look, but I waved it off. “I was just wondering, who’s going first this time?”

Yuji’s eyes flicked between me and Hana before a small flicker of his old competitive smirk crossed his face. “Well, you’ve both challenged gyms first before, so I imagine it would be myself or Amy.”

Hana grinned at him. “And you’re the one making the schedule,” she pointed out.

“That I am.” Yuji turned and took off at a steady rate down the road without another word, Despereaux trailing behind him. They were gone pretty quickly.

I started brushing Wisp again. I didn't look up at Hana, but I could feel her giving me a long look. She'd gone quiet for the last part of the conversation and had taken to just watching.

I felt a bit like one of her spreadsheets from the way she was studying me. I hadn't consciously acted the way I had because she was watching, but I hoped that this was at least a step forward in showing her that I'd taken our talk to heart.

She went back to grooming Rafflesia, and the two of us continued in relative silence. It was only after the sun had completely risen and our Pokemon were thoroughly pampered that Hana spoke.

"Did you want someone to walk with you to your… …meeting?" Hana asked. The word 'meeting' implied that she'd understood what I was referring to earlier: today was my first therapy session.

I shrugged, giving her a soft grin. "Nah, that's okay. You were gonna get some training in, right?"

"I was…" Hana admitted. "But-"

"It's chill. Everything is part of the plan, and I'm trying to stick to it." I echoed words we'd said at the Ranger Outpost. "And I will do what I said to Yuji. I'll be careful and I won't wander."

Hana debated my words before nodding. "I'm glad you're taking it seriously."

It was my turn to hesitate. I couldn't immediately tell if she was referring to Yuji's advice, our talk, therapy, or any other number of things. I mentally shrugged, scooping Wisp into my arms, and got up to return Artis. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter which one she was talking about specifically, because I was taking them all seriously.

"I'm doing what I can," I answered simply, offering her a hand. "Where are you headed for your training?"

Hana took my help and stood, returning a sleeping Rafflesia to her ball. She grinned. "I'm also headed to Route 24. There's a bridge there that people have been using to set up gauntlet battles."

"Nice!" I was genuinely excited for her. As much as Yuji and I got fired up about battles, Hana was just as passionate. "Looks like we've both got challenges today."

"Very different types of challenges," Hana chuckled. "But yes. Let's both do our best."

----------------------------------------

"Come in!" The voice that called from the other side of the doors was soft and elderly, which immediately put me at ease. Something about old people made me feel comfortable. It did a lot to cut at the knot of anxiety that had started building on my walk across town to the private practice.

I opened the door, stepping into the room at the same time. The office wasn't quite as small as the one where I'd met Dr. Delkins in the Pewter Pokemon Center, though it was still cozy. Shelves full of books and knick-knacks lined the walls, and a soft rug decorated the floor. In the corner was a desk and a filing cabinet that looked out to the Cerulean City streets below. In the center of the room were a pair of comfy chairs that flanked a wooden coffee table. Someone had taken the time to light an incense burner on the table.

The room was warm and dry, which was awesome compared to the chill of the outside air. It had been almost an entire hour since the sun had risen, but the coastal town had been slow to warm up. April was proving to be a cold month in Kanto, which was something that I was not used to.

I rubbed my hands together to warm them up before offering one of them to the person occupying one of the two chairs. "Hello," I said, politely bowing my head. "I'm Derek Tracy, thank you for seeing me today."

A soft and weathered hand grasped mine. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tracy," the elderly therapist smiled as she spoke. "I am Mrs. Kannagi, or Clara if that is too formal for you. Please feel free to shed your coat; there's a hook on the door."

Mrs. Kannagi was older than I'd expected, maybe in her late seventies, and she looked every bit the part. Silver hair that was pulled into a refined bun on her head, a white blouse and blue shawl that were both in pristine condition and a sort of knowing look that old people had. It was one of those expressions that made you feel like they knew something hilarious and that you were too young to understand the punchline. I found myself smiling back in response.

I did as she asked and hung my jacket on the hook. "Mrs. Kannagi is fine," I answered, hesitantly taking the seat opposite her. "My mom would be furious if she caught me being impolite."

As I said it, I felt a tiny lurch of nervousness in my stomach. Being directly opposite this new person made me super self-conscious, and I couldn't help but feel like every interaction was already being used to give Mrs. Kannagi an idea of who I was. I wasn't sure what I wanted this person's first impression of me to be, but just realizing that she was building one put me back on edge.

To her credit, Mrs. Kannagi didn't skip a beat. Instead, she smiled a bit wider and inclined her head. "It is nice to hear that young people are still being raised with manners," she said. "Though, this is meant to be a comfortable place. If it would help you in any way, know that I am happy with either of my names."

I considered it, genuinely taking her words at face value. "All right, then. Would it be okay if I call you Mrs. Clara?"

"Absolutely," she said. "And is it acceptable for me to call you Derek?"

"Yes ma'am," I chuckled. "In fact, I'd prefer it."

Mrs. Clara nodded, and we drifted off into a moment of silence. Even though I was nervous, she seemed content to let the moment last. I glanced around the room, noting that there wasn't a clock in sight. I'd signed on for an hour-long session, so I didn't want to waste it.

"Um," I hesitated. "How are we supposed to start? I mean- I guess- I've never really done this before."

"No, I don't expect you would have," she agreed. "Well, Derek, there are a few questions we'll need to talk about today, including how long you expect your care to go on for, as well as what kind of approach you'd like to take toward your therapy. However, it would do us both some good to know more about the other before we begin that in earnest."

That kind of took me aback. "Oh, I had thought- Didn't Dr. Delkins send my file through?"

Mrs. Clara nodded. "He did, as well as his very well-annotated profile on you. He even listed out several of his recommendations for your care." She patted a small file that sat wedged next to her in her chair. "While his insight was very valuable, I would still like to get to know you on my own. Very little of my training will matter without a bond of mutual trust between us, and it can be very unnerving to have someone only know you from another's file."

I couldn't disagree with her. Between my dad, Professor Oak, and Dr. Delkins, I was getting used to people just having read my file and understanding everything that had happened. It was always a little weird to hear them talking about things I hadn't told them.

"Okay then, that works. What do you want to know?" I could feel more apprehension bubbling in my chest. Anything that would get us there was okay in my books, but I wasn't sure about her methods yet. Dr. Delkins had done the same thing, but he'd been quick and efficient about it. This was anything but that.

Mrs. Clara nodded. “Let us begin with something simple, then. How has your preparation for your gym challenge gone so far?”

That caught me off guard. “Uh- I- I’m, sorry?” I sputtered at the question. “What?”

The elderly woman smiled, no small amount amused at my reaction. “You came to this city to challenge our gym leaders, I simply wished to hear how you’ve prepared your Pokemon to battle them.” Though she was asking something insane for a therapy session, Mrs. Clara spoke with the same energy of someone ordering tea to a waiter who was just a little slow.

“I…” I took a big gulp, not sure where the conversation was going. I decided to answer honestly. “I’ve been training Artis, my Sealeo to do some field control- that’s when you use strategies and moves to make the battlefield work toward your advantage- and, uh, yeah, it’s going pretty good.”

Mrs. Clara nodded her head as I spoke, maintaining eye contact and ignoring the notepad on her lap, and gave me a polite smile. “And this field control strategy, have you been focusing on Artis’ Ice or Water typing?”

What the hell…?

I was shocked, dumbfounded, and maybe, just maybe, gobsmacked. “Ice…” I muttered, glancing around the room one more time.

It was here, on my second inspection of the room, that I found what I should have seen on my first pass. On the central shelf of one of the bookcases behind Mrs. Clara was a framed photo of a much younger woman posing with a Lapras. Sat beside that photo was a well-cared-for bronze trophy in the shape of a Pokeball.

When my eyes flicked back to my therapist, I saw her knowing grin in a whole new light. She nodded once more at my answer, though instead of speaking, she gently motioned for me to keep going.

Knowing that I was dealing with a fellow trainer, however long ago that had been, I elaborated. “I figured that even though ice and water type Pokemon are pretty closely associated, and the Sensational Sisters do have some ice types, they’re probably way more accustomed to fighting in the water than on land. Artis has been working on his Aurora Beam to be able to freeze over the surface of the pool so we can put them on the back foot. He’s basically lived his whole life on land, after all.”

“And your other Pokemon?” Mrs. Clara prompted. “How do they interact with this strategy?”

“I’ve actually thought about this!” Excitement crept its way into my voice. “So, Wisp, my Misdreavous, is a non-corporeal ghost. She doesn’t need to breathe and isn’t really impacted by physical barriers, so she actually makes a really good pivot on a frozen pool. I figure I’ll set the stage and wear them down as long as I can with Artis, and then sweep them up with Wisp! I’ve been studying the Pokemon that the Sisters normally use at this level, and I think I have a strategy for if they pull out one of their big stallers like Starmie because Wisp..”

I stopped, looking up at Mrs. Clara. The older woman was beaming, but I glanced at the window and felt my own smile dip when I saw it was noticeably brighter outside than when I’d gotten here.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to be polite. “I don’t want to be rude, but what does this have to do with my therapy?”

Mrs. Clara straightened in her chair. “Well, it is as I said earlier: there is very little that our sessions will do if we are not comfortable with each other. I find that one of the simplest ways to connect with my clients, almost all of whom are trainers, is to discuss what they love most, Pokemon battling.”

I considered her words. “I… I guess that makes sense. I just- well…”

“You are eager to work on yourself,” Mrs. Clara said. “And that is very understandable. I just ask that you trust that there is a method to this process.”

Trust in the people who believe in me…

It wasn’t quite a direct translation of my fifth rule, but I couldn’t help but draw parallels to it. It wasn’t just Mrs. Clara who I was trusting here, after all. Dr. Delkins had recommended her to me, and even one step removed, Nurse Joy recommended him to me. I trusted both of them, and Mrs. Clara had given me no reason to mistrust her.

I nodded.

“That’s the spirit,” she said encouragingly. “Now, you were telling me about your tactic to deal with a possible Starmie?”

I took a breath before going back into it. “Yeah, um, there’s a pretty advanced move that Wisp can learn, and even though I’m not sure if she’s strong enough to pull it off yet…”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

----------------------------------------

The hour passed by quickly, but Mrs. Clara had been right: spending that much time talking about my Pokemon had put me in a comfortable headspace with her. It was almost impossible not to get excited when I was talking about my team, and it hadn’t been long before she’d started sliding little questions into the conversation. I almost hadn’t noticed them until she’d gotten me talking about Mt. Moon. We didn’t go too deep into it, but I could tell that my new therapist was more than happy with our progress.

When we got close to the end, Mrs. Clara recommended that while we wanted to make the most of my time in Cerulean, we shouldn't push too hard too quickly. Instead, we scheduled an hour every other day until the day of my gym battle, and then one final session before I headed out of town.

Then, life settled into a new normal over the next few days.

With my therapy finally figured out and my promise to Yuji to avoid the actual city center, my days became training, training, and more training. Yuji had done as we'd planned and signed us up to battle the Sensational Sisters in one week, so we had seven days to get our strategy online.

Artis was working hard on his Aurora Beam and he was able to summon small ribbons of rainbow light from his mouth now. It was getting closer to the real thing, but we probably wouldn’t have a whole lot of time to train on the actual ice field. I was going to have to hope that his practice with Ice Ball had prepared him enough for our battle.

Wisp, on the other hand, was thriving in her training. After the excitement of the first day, I’d decided to focus on her control with electric type moves. We focused more on the ‘charge’ part of Charge Beam, getting her used to handling smaller amounts of energy than the laser she’d been using before. The goal was ultimately to get her to learn Thunder Wave, which would be indispensable in restricting the Sister’s movement during battle. Pairing it with her Confuse Ray and Hex was going to be a nasty combination.

It was hard to try and plan for exactly what was going to happen during my gym battle, since Cerulean Gym was weird in that it had three separate Gym Leaders. I couldn’t make heads or tails of any sort of pattern as to which ones handled which challenges. They also all seemed to interchangeably use the different Pokemon at the gym, so it wasn’t like I could plan for specific team combinations, either.

I really hoped I would be up against Violet or Lily, mostly because the third one’s name was Daisy, and it felt kind of weird to be up against someone with the same name as my girlfriend. It added a whole other level to how much I was missing her.

Since I couldn’t know which one I was up against, nor what Pokemon they would be using, I did my best to memorize the overall strategies of their most frequently used Pokemon and brute force that information into my frozen pool strategy. It was exhausting, but I was doing my best to channel my inner Hana.

I wasn’t the only one training hard, either. I basically only saw my friends at breakfast and dinner, since we’d all thrown ourselves into our training. While it would have been nice to train together, we were all implementing very different styles in our training. Hana had taken to traveling north of the city, all the way to Route 25, and was taking advantage of the local water type population to train her team. Amy was starting from scratch with Gong and drilling the fundamentals over and over again since they had a ton of catching up to do. Yuji just kind of disappeared during the day, though I knew he was probably training harder than all of us. I tried not to interact too much with the local trainers, given Yuji's advice, but I did occasionally overhear people talking about his battles in town.

It really felt like Viridian City all over again.

I hoped I would perform better here.

After my conversation with Yuji and Hana, I took the time to listen to Portia’s interview where she mentioned me. It wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting, but man, she really nailed her observations of me. I was already working on a lot of what she’d called me out on, but I couldn’t help but replay one of her statements in my head.

“I honestly think that if he had waited another week to fight Giovanni,” she’d said, “he'd currently also be in the ranks of top rookies this season.”

I didn’t know how I felt about that. I certainly didn’t feel like some sort of elite rookie; I hadn’t been acting like it, either. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience interacting with my peers, funnily enough. My only standard for the other rookies this season had been my friends, which I felt like I was about at par with, and the few battles I’d had on the way to Mt. Moon.

Maybe it was just because I’d been working on myself so much lately, but I didn’t feel like I was making a lot of progress as a trainer, yet. While there was no arguing that I’d gotten stronger over the last two months, I was feeling the pressure to get even better, and it wasn’t just the other rookies pushing me to feel this way. With everything that had been said about Triumph Day, that felt like another clicking time-bomb on the horizon, and then there was the fact that I kept getting my ass kicked by the routes. Between the Viridian Forest and Mt. Moon, I was not excited to be on the road again.

At least I wasn’t struggling with money anymore. I wasn’t well-off by any means, since most of my winnings from Pewter Gym had gone into prepping for Mt. Moon, but Bronzor and Parasect had sold a couple of days after we’d put them up for auction, leaving each of us with a few thousand Poke in our pockets. It wasn’t nearly enough to start looking at Dusk Stones, but I was able to get all of my basics taken care of. Hana was kind enough to pick up potions and Pokeballs from the shops for me, given that I’d been avoiding people for the last few days.

The isolation training with my Pokemon was peaceful, but it was getting lonely fast. It wasn’t in vain, though. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the frosty looks from other trainers in the Center whenever I came in from training, and there were more than a few that I caught whispering the way I had a few days ago. Nobody had outright challenged me yet, mostly because I’d been quick to disappear when I noticed those signs, but I figured it was just a matter of time. It was weird, honestly, to be avoiding them as much as I was. It wasn’t that I was afraid of a few battles or anything, but it had been made clear to me that the problem would just continue to proliferate.

It was a little frustrating to not have a plan to deal with that. Just a month ago I would have pulled up to the front of the Cerulean Gym and let anybody who wanted to challenge me, but Yuji and Hana had been more than clear that was the wrong approach. I had already been stoking the tempers of the locals and doing something that flagrant was just inviting something bad to happen.

So, for now, I was persona-non-grata in Cerulean City. The best approach was to keep my head down, do my battle, and head out of town when it was done.

----------------------------------------

“Bah,” I scoffed, skipping a rock across the Cerulean River. “Keeping my head down sucks.”

It was my third day of independent training and I was struggling. I’d spent the morning on the far side of town talking to Mrs. Clara and we’d gone over most of what had happened in Pewter Museum. That had left me in an unpleasant mood. Talking things through with my therapist was hard work, I’d come to find out. She never offered any judgment, but it was just hard to relive some of that stuff, especially with it being so recent.

“Sea, sealeo,” Artis said sagely, nodding his head.

“Yeah, you said it, buddy.” I picked up another rock, inspecting its worthiness as a skipping stone. “We need to get you a water type to train against.”

Another reason for my frustration was that Artis’ progress had stalled, and it wasn’t his fault. His Aurora Beam was just barely almost there, but he hadn’t quite nailed it yet. He had a consistent beam of cold energy that just couldn’t accomplish what we wanted, and deep down I knew that it was because he was doing it on his own.

Pokemon, by and large, were meant to learn from battle. I’d learned from my experience back in Pewter that drills were only going to get us so far since we’d only started improving when we were doing regular battles with Yuji and Hana. Given that both of them were doing their own training, we couldn’t rely on them as a crutch this time.

We’d tried to battle against some of the wild Pokemon in the river, but the ones that were this far upstream were pretty weak, so they didn’t do much to push Artis. After the first two Krabby had gone down, the rest of the Pokemon had started avoiding the areas where we trained.

Wisp had even deigned to battle against Artis, putting aside her normal sibling rivalry with him to try and help, but it wasn’t the real competition that we needed. Ironically, the strong bond between my Pokemon kept them from getting too competitive with each other, so those mock battles had mostly been a waste of time.

There were a few options to solve our problem, and I wasn’t sure I was happy with any of them.

First, we could keep doing what we were doing and hope that Artis would have a spontaneous breakthrough as we got closer to the day of our challenge. It wasn’t likely, but it could happen.

Second, we could go downstream toward the ocean and try and find stronger water types to fight. We’d get the battles we wanted, though they would end up being something closer to tests of strength than the testing of our strategy that we wanted to do. The biggest downside was that we’d have to pass over the bridge Hana had told us about to get there, which was currently swarming with trainers. Given Yuji’s prescient advice about avoiding the local trainers, that sounded like a bad idea.

Third, we could go somewhere where we could battle other trainers, like the gym or the bridge. Not only would we be actively inviting negative attention onto ourselves, but we’d be fully ignoring our friend’s advice and disregarding my list.

Fourth, we could pull one of our friends away from their own very important training to come and battle us. It wasn’t the worst idea but given my strained relationship with Yuji and Hana, and the fact that Amy needed to train Gong up from scratch, this was my least favorite idea.

“What do you think, bud? One, two, three, or four?” I held up my fingers in front of Artis’s snout, which he sniffed and then disregarded with a sneeze. “Yeah, that’s where I’m at. They all suck.”

I glanced at the Nav. It was already almost three, so we wouldn’t have too many more hours of sunlight today.

“Mis drea,” Wisp stated. She hovered near my hand as I scrolled through my battle notes. I gently scratched her head, but she pushed against my knuckles.

“Yeah, I don’t have any ideas…” I kept muttering. “Maybe I could text Terry, he’ll probably roll into town soon- Ow! Wisp!”

My ghost had clamped her little teeth down on my thumb, tugging at it with more force than she needed to. It didn’t really hurt, but the sudden sting had pulled me out of my thoughts.

“What the heck was that for?” I rubbed my thumb, pulling it away from her evil little grasp.

Wisp gave me a dry look. “Drea drea, mis.”

I returned her stare. “Look, I know I’m pretty good at guessing what you guys are saying, but I don’t actually speak Pokemon. You’re gonna have to spell out what you want.”

Wisp’s eyes glowed blue and I stood up quickly. Before I could panic, though, I felt a gentle tug on the same hand she’d bitten. The blue glow of her Confusion illuminated four of my fingers, straightening and spreading them like I was holding the number four. After a moment that same light flickered into existence around my thumb.

“Mis!” Wisp said urgently, using her psychic power to move my thumb back and forth the way a child would.

I was suddenly very intrigued. “Wait, you’re saying you have a fifth option?”

“Drea!” Wisp exclaimed and released a sigh of relief.

“Oh. You should’ve said so earlier.”

Wisp stared at me with an utter lack of amusement in her red and yellow eyes. The psychic force on my fingers tightened like a vice.

“Ow, ow, ow! You’ve made your point! What’s this idea?”

She turned to float away, pulling me along by the hand with her Confusion. I fished Artis’ Pokeball out of my pocket and recalled him before we got too far.

I wasn’t sure where Wisp was taking me, but she pulled me back across the trail to the opposite side of the little peninsula that made up the south side of Route 24. If I squinted while we were on the trail itself, I could see the bridge that Hana had told me about way at the end of the peninsula.

On this side of the trail, the trees had successfully hidden an open beach that led out to sea. It wasn’t as flat as the west side, since there were a fair amount of craggy rocks that jutted out into the ocean, but the salty sea air was all the more fragrant out here. I immediately felt a pang of homesickness for Lilycove.

We walked for almost five minutes before Wisp brought me to the base of one of those craggy rocks. It was almost three meters tall and extended like a pier into the water, and the base of it was softly inclined. The wear, tear, and graffiti on the rock told me that it was no stranger to people climbing it.

Wisp suddenly stopped, turning back to me. “Mis mis,” she chirped cheerfully. When I didn’t immediately understand what she was saying, she folded all of my fingers over my palm other than my index finger, using that one to point at the end of the rock.

“What are you- oh…” I stooped down when I saw what, or more who, Wisp was pointing out.

At the end of the rock, a lone figure was sitting with their feet dangling over the ocean and they were holding a massive fishing pole in front of them. From behind, I could tell that they were shorter than me and had shoulder-length orange hair, but little else. The most important thing, though, was that even from here I could see the bright red glimmer of three Pokeballs on her waist.

I looked back at my Pokemon. “You brought me out here to find a trainer?” I was genuinely surprised. It was weird to see trainers off the beaten path around here since most would do their training farther down the route. That was the exact reason I’d decided to train here. “How did you even know she was out here?”

Wisp grinned, her eyes flashing a bright purple for a moment. While it didn’t fully answer my question, and I wasn’t sure I would ever get a real answer, she’d made it clear that she had some way of sensing this other trainer.

I frowned. This was a fifth option from what we’d talked about before. I hadn’t thought about finding a random trainer to fight, mostly because I didn’t think we’d run into one without either crossing the bridge or heading back into town. And, since that fishing rod was definitely graded for catching Pokemon, this person probably had a water type or two on them.

I let out a breath and nodded my head. “Alright, yeah. This works.” I pressed my palm against Wisp’s head, scratching her temple in approval. “You did a good job.”

“Misdrea vus,” Wisp said as she pushed her head against my hand like a cat. When she went to move forward, though, I felt a little bit of panic.

“Wait,” I paused Wisp before she could reveal us. “What if she’s a Mick fan like those other trainers? Chances are that she’s probably a local, and I don’t know if she’ll be chill.”

She gave me a droll stare and, without shoulders or arms, Wisp somehow managed to shrug. She drifted off in the direction of the trainer.

“Welp… …I guess this worked out with Minior.” I shrugged and took off after my Pokemon. I took wide steps up the rock, using my hands to balance myself until I got to the top.

The trainer hadn’t turned around while I’d climbed, so I assumed that they hadn’t heard me, and Wisp was patiently drifting to my side. There was maybe four or five meters of space between me and the trainer, and I opened my mouth to talk to them.

I suddenly felt very awkward very quickly. It was only now occurring to me that I had never actually challenged a complete stranger to a Pokemon battle before. The closest I’d come to that was back in Viridian when I’d barely met my trio, and even then I’d already gotten to know them a bit before challenging them. All of my battles after that had been spars with one of my friends, gym battles, or challenges against other people on the routes who were actively also looking for a battle.

It was a little embarrassing, actually. That was kind of the whole schtick of being a trainer, and I had no idea how to do it.

How does somebody do this? Do I just, like, yell?

I opted for a gentler approach. “Uh, excuse me?” I projected my voice to be heard over the waves, but I tried not to be too loud. I didn’t want to scare her, after all.

The trainer jolted in their seat, quickly turning their head to see who had called out to them. She had green eyes and a kind face with a mischievous, tomboy-esque upturned nose. The girl quickly stood up, setting her fishing rod into a little holder that had been attached to the rock. She removed a pair of earbuds from her ears, which answered why she hadn’t heard me before.

“Sorry about that,” I apologize. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just- well, I was hoping…”

The girl’s eyes quickly glanced between my face to Wisp’s drifting form and a flicker of understanding moved across her face.

“Oh, you were looking for a battle?”

I let out a sigh of relief and nodded. “Yeah, that. If that’s okay?”

“Well…” The girl’s tone turned uncertain and she glanced back toward the ocean and her fishing pole. “I don’t normally accept battle requests while I’m out fishing, sorry about that.”

“Oh.”

There was a small beat of silence. If I had been unsure of how to challenge someone to a battle, I was completely out of my depth when then being rejected from said challenge.

My eyes turned to the ground. “Um, yeah- okay- no, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry to bother you.” I turned to crawl back down the rock in shame.

“Wait!” While I was not looking for a pity-challenge to this admittedly embarrassing situation, I couldn’t stop the hope that jumped up in my chest when the girl called out for me to pause. She took a few steps forward and pointed in a vaguely northward direction. “I’m not sure if you know, but there’s a bridge full of trainers down that way who’ve been doing a bunch of different battles. Maybe you could head down there?”

I paused at how genuinely nice this girl was trying to be, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit exasperated by both the situation and my circumstances.

“Oh, yeah,” I mumbled intelligently. “I, uh, well it’s kind of a long story but I’m sort of avoiding big groups right now. But I do appreciate the advice, it’s just-”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” the girl interrupted me with a sympathetic head nod. “That’s why I’ve been fishing here lately rather than down at Cerulean Cape. It’s all way too crowded down there, and worse,” she paused to grimace, “there’s a bunch of bug catchers down there.”

Her expression when she talked about the bug Pokemon specialists was a cross between the one someone might make when looking at garbage and the one Amy made when they were asked to exercise.

“So I’m assuming you don’t like bugs?”

She shook her head, her orange hair fluttering in the breeze. “Nope. They’re one of the three,” the girl held up three fingers to emphasize her statement, “most disgusting things on the planet. I mean, every Pokemon can be cute, but as a rule, bugs are pretty awful.”

The intrusive thought of introducing this girl to Achilles crossed my mind and I couldn’t help but grin a little.

“Well, if we do end up battling sometime, I don’t have any bug types. Not that I mind most of the little guys, but Wisp here bugs me and Artis, my Sealeo, enough.” I jutted my thumb to where Wisp had been floating a moment before, but my statement made her turn away and sulk. “Plus, I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Beedrill or anything similar. Anyway, I’ll let you get back to fishing. Sorry again about interrupting.”

“Wait!” As I turned to crawl down the rock, the girl once again stopped me. This time, though, instead of a pitying smile, her eyes had grown as wide as saucers and she had a greedy smile on her face. “You have a Sealeo? Like, the big blubbery Pokemon from Hoenn?”

Oh, that’s interesting. The girl’s demeanor had changed at the drop of a hat. It was honestly boarding on creepy in a fun sort of way.

“Yeah…,” I said cautiously. “He’s my starter, and I was hoping to train him up before I challenged the Cerulean Gym later this week. We’ve been out looking for water types to train against, since he’s hit a brick wall trying to train up his Aurora Beam. That’s actually one of the reasons we challenged you, given you had the fishing equipment and everything.”

The girl’s face contorted between a few different expressions, most of which I didn’t get the context for or catch what they properly were. There was some excitement, maybe some trepidation, a flash of something I didn’t catch, but ultimately she seemed like she was making a decision. I didn’t say anything more as I waited for her to do so.

Her indecisiveness vanished in a moment and she shrugged. “Oh well, I’ll help you out!” The girl spoke with a crooked grin and punctuated her statement with a cocky swipe of her thumb across her nose. “You’re in luck! Not only do I really want to see your Pokemon, but I’m also a water type specialist!”

I glanced Wisp’s way and she paused her sulking to give me the biggest ‘I told you so’ grin that I’ve ever seen. I gave her a grateful grin and pulled myself all the way back up onto the rock.

“Heck yeah! I really appreciate this!” I offered my hand out. “Artis really needs a good challenge, so you sound like what we’re looking for. My name’s Derek, by the way.”

The girl shook my hand, eyes glinting toward my belt and bag, probably looking for Artis’ Pokeball. “Nice to meet you, Derek! I’ve never seen a Sealeo before and I adore water types, obviously, so honestly I’m doing this more for me than for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, it works for me.” I meant that, too. This person was exactly the kind of trainer I’d been looking for, and I was finally having a lucky break in that she either didn’t know or didn’t care who I was. “Oh, I don’t think I caught you name?”

She grinned. “That’s okay, there’s no way you’re gonna forget it once you lose. I’m Misty.”

“We’ll see about that,” I smirked. “Misty, let’s battle.”

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