I took a deep breath in. My hands drifted over my face and through my hair. They still smelled like salt water from my gym challenge earlier. Through the set of doors in front of me, I could still distantly hear Misty introducing herself to Hall 01’s crowd and the rest of the world as Cerulean’s fourth gym leader. The cheering they gave her in return caused the air the thrum.
I grinned again. I could hardly be blamed for not realizing that there would be another Sensational Sister, but it had been telegraphed to me that she was a local water specialist. It should’ve at least occurred to me that she’d work here.
She’d even slipped once, back when we’d met, and I hadn’t realized it at the time. She’d almost referred to the Sensational Sisters as ‘my’ sisters, her sisters.
Well, regardless of how I got here, the fact that I was battling someone familiar actually added to the fire that was building in my gut. I hadn’t gotten used to the feeling of walking out into a gym challenge yet, but this one had new and different stakes associated with it. It wasn’t just a battle against an acquaintance, but it would be a gym leader’s first battle, ever. It would also be my first battle since pissing off half of Kanto, but that barely registered in my mind. It wasn’t important right now.
I just wanted to give Misty a good match.
“Trainer Tracy,” a small intercom buzzed by the door, “we’re ready for you to enter in three, two, one. Please enter the battle area.”
I opened my eyes and exhaled. I pushed through the set of double doors and the spotlight from beyond was almost blinding. The smell of salt water intensified and I could feel the rumble of the crowd in my bones.
My eyes adjusted, and I could see that the senior Sensational Sisters had already left the battlefield. Only Misty remained, and she was already staring me down with a fierce and mischievous grin. She nodded to me and I did so in return, but before I stepped forward, I waved once at the crowd with an open palm. It was something that I’d decided to do before, a signal to the crowd that showed that I wasn’t carrying any flags this time.
Their response was less than it had been for any of my friends, and there were stills scattered ‘boos’ from the audience, but most still seemed to be riding the high of receiving a new gym leader. Their claps and cheers echoed on the tiled walls. Among them, I could clearly hear the shouts from Amy, Yuji, and Hana. Though I couldn’t see them from under the harsh spotlight, I flashed a grin in their direction.
I closed the distance to the battlefield and took my spot at the trainer’s podium. I looked to the referee, who had taken care of the pre-battle officiating so far, but he nudged his head toward Misty. My opponent smirked and flipped down the microphone on a small headset, the kind they used for plays and performances.
“Challenger Tracy of Hoenn!” Misty’s voice echoed through the gym speakers. “You are challenging for your second gym badge of the season. We will be using standard League Challenge rules. This will be a two-on-two battle with no swaps. Do you accept these conditions?”
Misty tapped the side of her head once, flipping off the microphone. “And are you ready for me to kick your butt this time?”
I grinned from ear to ear. That little jibe was just for me. “Yeah, I accept those conditions!” I winked at Misty and lowered my voice. “But this is pretty much going to be a repeat of last time.”
She shook her head and smiled. Misty clicked her microphone again. “Then I accept your challenge! Please, release your Pokemon!”
I grabbed Artis’ ball off of my belt and tossed it toward our floating platform. He materialized just above it, his weight slapping into it and sending ripples across the pool. Artis arched his back raising his head high into the sky, and roared as loudly as he could.
I didn’t miss how Misty’s gaze softened when Artis appeared, though she masked it quickly and reared back to release her own Pokemon. Unlike her sisters, Misty wasn’t handed a Dive Ball. Instead, she pulled a standard Pokeball from her jacket and tossed it into the pool. The Pokemon from within it was bright blue and covered in hard scales, and its trumpet-like face poked out of the pool with an angry expression. Artis growled at it.
My brain blanked up seeing the Seadra. It hadn’t occurred to me that Misty wouldn’t be pulling from the same pool of Pokemon as her sisters. Since none of the Sensational Sisters had used one for second badge challenges so far, I hadn’t prepared for this particular Pokemon.
Misty raised an eyebrow at me, smug.
I see.
I let out a breath, letting the nervousness and anxiety leave my body. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t studied for this particular battle. Our strategy was still solid. I shook my head at her and stood tall.
“Let’s begin!” Misty declared, leaning forward in anticipation. “Referee, please count us in!”
The referee stepped forward and held his hand high. As he counted down from three, the crowd began to chant and cheer.
“Three!”
“Misty! Misty! Misty!” Their shouts reverberated across the chamber, but I didn’t take my gaze off my opponent. Misty did the same, keeping her bright blue eyes trained on me.
“Two!”
“Misty! Misty! M- Derek!” My head cocked to the side, the interruption in the pattern almost distracting me. Heat blossomed in my chest as all three of my friend’s voices overcame the crowd for just a moment. The real kicker, though, was that there were voices that I didn’t recognize synced up with them.
“One!”
“Misty! Derek! Misty! Derek!” Either through volume or sheer willpower, my few supporters and friends drove my name home as powerfully as the Sensational Sister’s fans yelled Misty’s. If I wasn’t aware of my standing, I could almost trick myself into thinking that the crowd was split.
I pulled in a soft breath. The cheers became a dull white tone in the background.
“Begin!”
“Aurora Beam the field!”
“Dive down and Focus Energy! Then attack!”
Artis drove his tail into the platform, launched himself above the water, and tucked himself into a spinning dive. A smooth beam of prismatic color warbled through the air in all directions, transforming the surface into a smooth sheet of ice as it hit. The blues, greens, purples, and pinks all refracted off of the ice, causing a light that was almost more blinding than the spotlight above me. My Sealeo had his body tucked into a Rollout before he hit the surface and rolled through the landing.
I couldn’t see Seadra under the ice, but from her expression Misty had accounted for our plan. We’d straight up told her what we’d be trying to do here, after all. Her eyes tracked a shape under the ice, and I suddenly felt like a genius.
“Artis, left!”
A torrent of bubbles rocketed through the ice, each as hard and fast as a baseball, and sent a cascade of salt water geysering into the air where Artis had been. Misty’s face scrunched in disappointment at the miss, but she waved her hand to the side.
“Repeat fire! Bubble Beam!” Misty yelled.
Artis swerved in response to her call, and three more pillars of bubbles speared through our ice in his wake. They didn’t do a lot of damage to the ice itself, since they had a tight grouping to pierce through it, but they were violently spraying water in every direction, making the ice slick and taking away his traction. Artis’ Rollout wobbled as he skidded on a puddle, and a fifth Bubble Beam rocketed into his side.
Misty grinned. Our tactics were obviously going to be harder to get off without the element of surprise.
Shit. I needed to adapt the plan.
“Aqua Ring, Powder Snow the floor, then build up speed!”
Artis barked. A thin tendril of water wrapped around him, glowing faintly. He dodged once more to the left as another geyser of bubbles sprayed past him, but he wasn’t able to fully get out of the way. The bubbles split like jagged water when they hit him, popping with more force than a punch. I grimaced as one exploded right against his ear, almost knocking him off course. That Focus Energy hadn’t been for nothing and this Pokemon was an expert sniper.
The air glowed white as Artis released a gale of snowflakes behind him. His powder snow filled the air like fog but gathered in clumps and fell to the floor. This wasn’t a traditional use of the move, but I was hoping the loose snow would do something for this traction on the ice. The snow turned into a wet slurry as it started siphoning the water.
Artis picked up speed.
“That’s it! Keep going! Follow the pattern!” I pointed to the far side of the ice where I could almost make out Seadra’s form. The water type hadn’t moved much under the water. We were almost up to speed. If we could nail it with a full power Rollout-
Misty cut her hand through the air. “Seadra, time to get serious, Dragon Breath!”
There was a flash of light under the ice and a brilliant bout of purple flame roared to life from Misty’s side of the field. It was almost triple Seadra’s width and concentrated like a welder’s torch, searing through the ice in a straight line toward Artis.
I made a split-second call. “Tank it! Use the momentum you have now!”
“Leo!” Artis roared, pushing through the purple fire and into the water below. The resulting smack was so loud that I could feel it in my bones. The fire stopped on impact, but two blue shapes drifted apart under the water. I couldn’t see how damaged it was, but Seadra was still in this fight. We hadn’t been able to build up enough speed.
Artis flopped out of the water, pushing back onto his ice. It was peppered full of holes, but still solid, and Artis was in the same shape. His blue and white fur was now charred black in places, and his large whiskers had lost a few inches on either side, but my boy still looked pretty good. His wounds were already fading from his Aqua Ring.
“Now!”
A second bout of flame enveloped Artis from below, and I cursed at myself. I’d spent too much time checking Artis for damage when of course Seadra was going to recover in the water first. Misty’s smirk was evidence of that.
“Artis, Brine!”
Artis warbled in pain, but he heard my order. His throat glowed with deep blue light and he tucked his head down. The water that poured forward was salty to almost acidic levels, and the pressure behind it was enough to put the Bubble Beams to shame. His torrent instantly ate away at the ice under his feet, pushing with enough force to roll Artis backward into the water. The water and draconic flames of Dragon Breath exploded into a cloud of steam, creating a thick, acrid scent and covering the battlefield.
When the attacks ended, neither trainer spoke. Neither of us knew the state of our Pokemon.
There was a loud splash from within the acidic fog, and I felt a smile creep up my lips. I didn’t want to celebrate too early, but only one of our Pokemon had a reason to get up onto the ice.
“Sealeo!” Artis barked, breathing out a cloud of powdered ice and clearing away the fog. He looked ragged, the second direct hit from Dragon Breath having critically injured him, but he was still standing.
At his feet was a crumpled and battered blue form.
My grin didn’t contain itself when I saw the state that Seadra was in. Our Rollout must have done enough damage to severely injure Seadra, because Brine only bruised a Pokemon that badly when it was already hurt pretty badly.
“Seadra is unable to battle!” The referee raised a hand. “Leader Misty, please return your Pokemon!”
Misty sighed, but she gave me a satisfied look. She returned Seadra to their Pokeball. Misty clicked off her mic one more time.
“Alright, I figured you’d probably chew through Seadra, but he still gave Artis a run for his money. Plus, I’m not the only one who wanted a rematch,” Misty said. She held up another Pokeball and activated her microphone. “Starmie, come on out!”
My shoulders unclenched ever so slightly. I’d prepared for this one.
Misty’s next Pokemon was just over a meter in height, with ten muscular purple appendages attached to a gold core. In the center of the core was a cut ruby gem that glittered and glowed with an inner light.
“Hyahh!” Starmie took up a fighting stance, flexing all of its arms at once. The water behind it exploded into a tiny backdrop of vapor.
While posing wasn’t uncommon among Starmie, this stance was a little too familiar. The meaning of Misty’s words finally hit me. “Oh! Freshly evolved? That’s awesome!”
Misty nodded and a proud glimmer reflected in her eyes. If I remembered correctly, Staryu required a water stone to evolve, so she must’ve been jazzed that her Pokemon was finally ready to receive one. Starmie’s back half rotated in response, showing off a whole new range of motion for the starfish.
“Leader Misty has sent out Starmie,” the referee called. “We will now resume the match! Begin!”
“Buy time! Build back up!” I yelled to Artis to run. His Aqua Ring had only been given a few moments to heal him, and he definitely wasn’t back up to fighting strength yet.
Artis threw his weight backward, rolling around the massive gaps in the ice left by Dragon Breath and Brine. His Rollout was hesitant and uneven as he rolled over his burns and bruises.
“Nope! They’ve had enough fun, Starmie, take back our pool!” Misty clapped her hands together. “Rapid Spin!”
Starmie’s back arms rotated like blender blades, spinning so fast that I couldn’t make out individual arms. It tilted its body on a side axis, let one arm cut into the ice, and inertia took over. Starmie’s body flew across the ice, each arm smashing into the ice sheet and propelling it forward like an errant tire on the highway. In its wake, chunks of crystalline slush flew backward and meter-long cracks appeared in the ice.
I tensed as it approached Artis at high speed, but Starmie jetted past Sealeo toward my end of the pool. It caught its arms on an upturned platform and flew into the air. Its arms never stopped spinning, only adjusting its angle to slam back down toward the pool surface. Our icy field offered it no resistance as it hit like a shuriken, slicing through the ice and into the water below.
A low rumble echoed across the battlefield.
As one, every crack that Starmie had left in its wake widened, shattering through the ice sheet and colliding at specific breaking points. Points that had been left behind by Seadra’s Bubble Beam.
“To the edge, now!” I panicked, realizing that Misty had been playing a long game with her shot placements earlier.
Artis barked, guiding his exhausted Rollout to the pool’s edge, where the holes were the fewest. He made it just in time. The cracks reached their apex all at once, and the entire center of the battlefield collapsed. Ice chunks careened away from their original spots, flipping and spinning in the water and sending waves spraying in every direction. Now that I could see through the ice, Starmie was clearly visible underneath the surface spinning and swimming in a clockwise direction to create a current that stirred up the ice even further. The two floating platforms were upturned and buried under the water and ice.
Artis was going to have to re-solidify the surface to get anywhere-
“Water Pulse!” Misty grinned. “Apply pressure, don’t let them catch their breath!”
“Shit,” I said under my breath. Louder, I yelled, “Artis, intercept with Aurora Beam!”
Starmie released three rings of water from within the pool depths. They were soundless coils of laminar flow that didn’t lose a drop as they careened toward Artis. My Sealeo whipped his head forward and unhinged his jaw, his signature rainbow beam spraying forward. It was sloppy and jagged, but he managed to catch the front ring with it. On impact, it solidified into ice and slowed from Aurora Beam’s power. The second and third rings slammed into the first, sending chunks of ice and briney water spraying in every direction.
When three more rings emerged from the water, I didn’t have to command Artis to defend again. He slapped down his flippers for sturdier footing and shot the rings out of the air. Starmie kept up the pressure, and I very quickly realized that Starmie could do this all day.
My eyes flicked from Artis to Starmie to Misty. In less than a week, she’d taken her Staryu and given it an entirely new fighting style, adapting it to our plan and evolving it. She still had tricks up her sleeve that she hadn’t pulled out yet, either, like Recovery and Analytic. Artis was strong, but we didn’t have the advantage of surprise like we’d had before. His Aqua Ring was doing work healing him up, but his damage output was below Starmie’s, and both of them could heal. This was going to be a long fight and Artis probably wasn’t going to come out on top.
My gaze turned to the crowd.
I made a decision.
“I return my Pokemon!” I called out, raising one hand into the air.
“Challenger Tracy has chosen to recall his Sealeo!” The referee announced, raising a flag. “Sealeo is no longer able to battle. Challenger, please send out your next Pokemon!”
Misty shot me a look as I returned Artis. She wasn’t upset. In fact, she gave me a small smile and a nod, and I knew that she was thinking the same thing that I was.
Even though this battle was between the two of us, we couldn’t forget that eyes were on us both. A boring stall match wasn’t how Misty wanted to debut as a gym leader, and it wouldn’t do me any favors in the eyes of Kanto.
Luckily, I had an anti-Starmie machine that was going to speed up this battle.
“Wisp!” I yelled, tossing my second Pokeball. “It’s your turn, take the stage!”
Even though my Pokeball released a burst of light, no Pokemon immediately appeared. At least, not to the audience. To my trained eyes, I could see the density of shadows on the water’s surface changing and the way that small chunks of ice would drift and move in the water. Whispers echoed through the hall, though they didn’t bounce off the tiles the way that all of the other sounds had. It originated from within the shadows, sending tiny shivers down each audience member’s spine. The whispers caused goosebumps to appear on even my arms.
Wisp solidified from the hair up, slowly drifting out of the shadow of a small glacier and into view. Above her eyes, she still sported a gash in her shadowy form from our earlier battle. Misty involuntarily shivered, but she gave Wisp a wink.
The referee dropped his hand again. “Challenger Tracy has sent out Misdreavus, we will now resume the match! Begin!”
“Disappear, Starmie! Camoflague!”
I cracked a grin. “That won’t work! Wisp, Thunder Wave!”
Starmie vanished in the water, becoming essentially invisible, but Wisp mirrored my grin. Her red beads glowed yellow, and a tiny wave of electricity fled from her in every direction. The salty smell of the pool took on the sharp tang of ozone as it rolled through the water. Deep below the surface, Starmie flickered in and out of existence. The starfish seized and struggled as the weak pulse of electricity contracted its muscles.
Thunder Wave was Wisp’s first successful attempt at learning an electric type move on her own, and one of two secret moves that she’d been training for this battle. Pride coursed through me as she successfully pulled it off in battle.
Misty frowned and kept herself from grinding her jaw. “Work around it, Water Pulse!”
As much as Starmie was inconvenienced by the paralysis, it wasn’t out of the fight. Three more rings of smooth water rocketed toward Wisp from Starmie’s spinning form. They broke the surface and Wisp pushed off to the side with a cackle. She drifted through a chunk of ice, temporarily becoming incorporeal and allowing the attack to smash into her cover. Without an order from me, Wisp’s necklace began to glow bright yellow, and a thin beam of electricity seared through the water. The air smelled of petrichor as the water around Starmie electrolyzed.
Starmie’s back legs revved faster than I would’ve thought possible, pushing it out of the way of the brunt of the Charge Beam. Their red gem glowed bright pink for a moment, and a blue-purple counterpart to Barrier appeared around it.
I grimaced at the Light Screen. It wasn’t going to make winning impossible, but it was going to be more annoying.
“Give them a taste of their own medicine,” I called. “Quick bursts, Charge Beam again!”
“Avoid and Analysis, Starmie,” Misty responded. “Recover when you need to!”
Wisp was faster on the draw, since Starmie’s partial paralysis was still slowing it down. Wisp’s bead glowed yellow in sequence, each one only partially charging before releasing its electrical contents in a beam that was narrower than any of our practice attempts. With each beam, Wisp’s face grew more energetic and excited, like she was bursting with power.
Starmie used its legs like a rudder, chewing through the water and icy slush with speed, even when slowed. It was able to avoid the majority of Wisps attacks by keeping its movement pattern erratic, but we still landed a few hits on its limbs, scorching and swelling them with electricity on each hit. Almost as soon as they appeared, though, the wounds would disappear as Starmie’s gem pulsed with pink energy. The Light Screen was halving their damage, so Recover was more than enough to keep them from doing any lasting damage to Starmie.
Starmie’s gem flickered a familiar red, and Misty grinned. “That’s it, Water Pulse!”
“Shadow Sneak!”
Wisp vanished from sight, the only trace of her existence being a thin tendril of shadow that connected her to Starmie’s shadow. The starfish spun in the water, gem flashing red again, and it flipped its face side behind it. Wisp reappeared just in time for three rings of water to slam into her with consecutive concussive blasts. Each one sent her spinning through the water, but I couldn’t keep myself from grinning.
“Now!”
WIsp’s eyes flared open under the water, going wide, far wider than naturally possible. Her incorporeal form expanded and grew bloated, reaching almost triple her normal size, and her eyes flickered between red and yellow like a demented cartoon character. She opened her ghostly mouth wide and bit down on Starmie’s spinning form.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Starmie deflated like a water balloon. The limb that Wisp was clamped onto withered into a far darker purple, shrinking and growing wrinkly over just a few seconds. The bruises on Wisp’s body from the point-blank Analytic-fueled Water Pulse began to fade, and the shadowy gash on her forehead disappeared entirely.
Pain Split was the second of Wisp’s secret moves, and our answer to our opponents’ healing. It would take the injuries of two Pokemon and redistribute them to be equal between the two, meaning that any healing our opponents did would end up helping us, too.
The impressed but frustrated look on Misty’s face told me that we’d gotten our point across. If she wanted to keep avoiding a stall match, she’d have to stop herself from healing.
“Starmie, get away and Psywave!”
“Not going to happen!” I yelled as the shimmer of Light Screen disappeared. We’d waited it out. “Hex!”
“Drea drea!” Wisp cackled as she let go of Starmie’s arm and tendrils of shadowy purple flames extended off of her body. They wrapped around the paralyzed starfish before it had the chance to escape. Where they touched, the tendrils burnt and withered the flesh far worse than pain split had. Starmie convulsed in the water, its red gem frantically flickering red. The residual energy from our paralysis echoed with the ghostly nature of Hex, rebounding it through Starmie with twice the intensity that it would normally have. Several Charge Beam had power Wisp up, which meant that she packed a punch.
Starmie’s gem ceased glowing.
The referee raised his hand.
"Leader Misty's Pokemon is unable to battle," he called. "The winner is Challenger Derek Tracy!"
The cheers of the crowd slammed back into my attention, no longer relegated to a dull background noise. My friends shouted at the top of their lungs, and as the gym trainers brought the house lights up, I could see that a good third of the crowd was cheering my name.
“Tracy, Tracy, Tracy!” They yelled.
Another third of the crowd gave polite claps and cheers that mirrored the sportsmanship of cheering on a decent opponent, and it was only the last third that actively booed my down and frowned.
I ripped my eyes away from the crowd and back to Misty, who had recalled Starmie and was standing next to the referee. She waved me over. I beckoned Wisp into my shadow and stepped around the side of the pool. It was still slick with ice from Artis’ attacks, so I was careful not to slip. Gym trainers were already hard at work melting the ice we’d left behind.
The referee stepped back to allow Misty to reach a hand out to me, and I took it. She wasn’t giving me a real look, yet, instead pouting toward me with big blue eyes, though I could tell she was mostly being sarcastic.
Misty’s hand was soft but her grip was tough. A big satisfied grin pushed its way through her pout. “Good win,” she said.
“Great battle,” I replied, the tension in my body slowly fading. In its place came pride and excitement. My face tingled. “I can’t wait to battle you again.”
Misty’s grin shifted to a small bemused smile. She looked a little taken aback, but not in a bad way. “That’s good to hear,” she said. “I’d have thought that after two wins you’d be done with my team. I’d have to use my sister’s Pokemon if I wanted to fight you with anything stronger right now. Daisy might even be the better option if you want a challenge.”
“Are you crazy? Misty, you completely upped that Staryu in a week! Imagine what your Pokemon are going to look like by the end of the season! I don’t care about facing your sisters or their Pokemon, I’m going to come back after we’ve both gotten stronger.”
Her bemused look slowly shrank into one of disbelief before flitting into genuine beaming. Misty shook my hand again, grasping it tight.
“I’m going hold you to that,” she said.
“Bet,” I spoke without hesitation. “I’m coming back after my eight badge, and I’ll give you another rematch.”
She nodded and then gestured toward where the camera was still rolling. Misty tilted her head forward, motioning to me what she intended, and I nodded back.
We both bowed to the camera, and the crowd went wild.
----------------------------------------
Four plastic poppers exploded in unison and all four of us cheered. Achilles warbled happily as he snapped a paper hat onto Paige’s head while Gong floated above them. Pennywise and Rafflesia played in the confetti that had scattered onto the floor from our poppers. Artis laid out on his back with Despereaux resting on his belly, both happily resting after their tough battles. Wisp was nowhere to be seen, but I was seated strategically next to the box that contained our cake, so I was sure she was nearby and watching. My egg incubator was perched next to me on the table.
After all four of us had gotten successful wins, we’d decided to retire to the Pokemon Center for the night. Even though we would normally hit up a karaoke club or something similar after a win, it had felt right to do a private celebration since it was our last day together. Nurse Joy had offered us one of the upstairs conference rooms for our party, and Hana and I had taken care of the shopping. We’d all changed into as casual as clothes as possible, and it honestly felt like a pajama party.
I distributed sodas to my fellow trainers and Hana pulled out a box of sandwiches. They were both the fancy kinds, with the soda bottles being heavy glass and the sandwiches coming in a deluxe box with a ribbon. Yuji took to the task of setting out the extra berries that we’d picked up for our Pokemon, which they all cheerfully accepted.
“Man, those look so tasty…” Amy practically drooled as a plate was slid over to them. They admired their sandwich, eating it with their eyes first.
“Dig in,” Hana smiled softly, pushing a stack of napkins over as well. “We all did a great job today.”
“Yes, we did,” Yuji tucked a loose strand of black and white hair behind his ear. He nodded his head to both of us in thanks and took his own plate. “And hopefully this is the second in a string of eight victories for each of us.”
“You can say that again,” I grinned. “Since we have two badges now, that puts us… What was it? Half drop out before one, then a tenth more before two, so that puts us-”
Hana held up her hands with her fingers out. “In the fifty-fifth percentile. Just by making it here, we’ve accomplished more than fifty-five percent of rookie trainers.”
“Mprf-” Amy choked, their mouth already full of sandwich as they squeaked in surprise. They swallowed. “What, really?”
I reached over the table and tousled their hair. “Feels good, right?”
Amy sat down their sandwich in shock, a feat I didn’t think they were capable of. They looked at all three of us with wide eyes, daring us to say it was a prank.
“That sounds correct to me,” Yuji affirmed. “We are proveably stronger than more than half of the other rookies.”
Amy leaned back in their chair. “Whoa….”
The three of us chuckled at their reality check. We really were that strong, at least, compared to the average rookie. We were probably a bit stronger than that, actually, given that I had won against the ninth-ranked rookie, and Yuji and Hana were at least as strong as me. Amy was getting up there, too.
I felt my smile dim, though, when a stray thought crossed my mind.
We were still nothing compared to any of the Pokemon that I’d seen at the Pewter Museum.
Any one of Proton’s Pokemon could obliterate our teams on its own, let alone any of the Pokemon that Bruno or Brock had thrown out. I was confident that with both Wisp and Artis, I could take out the Rhydon that we’d fought in Mt. Moon, but if it came to a one-on-one for either of them, I wasn’t so sure I would win. That didn’t include other dangerous wild Pokemon, though, or even when the experienced trainers joined the season on Triumph Day-
Yuji, perhaps sensing my distress, put his hand on my shoulder.
“And now we enter the most intense training of our season,” he said fiercely. “We are going to emerge from this even stronger and sweep the remaining gyms.”
“Yeah,” I said softly, letting myself relax. “You’re right about that one. Two down, six to go.”
“Yup!” Amy jumped in, having finished her sandwich already. “Next up is Saffron! Then we’ll probably kick Erika’s butt in Celadon, then Surge, then Koga and Blaine, then Giovanni is gonna get a Barrier straight up the a-”
“Alright!” Hana chuckled, shushing Amy’s tirade before it got too out of control. “First things first, we have to get through the next few weeks. That’s going to mean lots of hard training and planning.”
“That’s no problem,” Yuji shrugged, his grin growing fierce. “I am hoping that my team and I will be able to revisit our fundamentals at the Dojo, and I have a few plans for some future members that I would like to look out for.”
“Oh boy, me too!” Amy pumped their fist in the air. “Since we’re heading south, there’s all kinds of cool psychics that I can find, like Hypno and Alakazam! I even heard about this place in Celadon where people can win rare Pokemon by playing games…”
As Amy and Yuji talked about their ideas for team members, my eyes drifted over to Hana. She was watching them carefully and calmly, her expression posed in a perfect mask that didn’t betray any discomfort or sadness.
The slight picking at the edge of her phone case and the way her eyes would flick back and forth between the two of them, though? Hana was worried about something. I could feel it.
I took a moment to consider my list. It was easy to let this fall into ‘Let problems be problems’, but I wasn’t so sure that it applied. I didn’t know whether or not this was something to be solved, or just nervousness that Hana was feeling. If anything, I felt more like this fell under ‘Teamwork before self-reliance’.
Instead of interrupting Yuji and Amy’s very animated talk, I pulled the Nav from my pocket and typed a quick text under the table.
[[19:06, me]] Hey, do you want to talk about whatever’s bothering you?
Hana stiffened as her phone lit up under her fingers. She slid the screen open and read the message. She relaxed, though, when she saw who it was from and she shot me a quick look. I smiled and shrugged.
Hana read my message slowly. Her shoulders lowered slightly and she didn’t look me in the eye. Instead, she typed out a message back.
[[19:07, Hana]] That obvious?
I smiled into my hand. Nailed it.
[[19:07, me]] Not that bad. I mean, Amy hasn’t noticed, and that’s saying a lot.
[[19:07, me]] No pressure, though. If you want to keep it to yourself, that’s totally okay.
Both in person and in the app, I could see Hana typing. She deleted it, though, and looked up at me. She looked a little embarrassed, and her green eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine. Instead, she nodded softly.
I took my cue.
“Oh, dang,” I said at an appropriate volume to both be heard by the others but not interrupt their conversation. “Hana, did you ever end up picking up that fairy type grooming kit for me? I’d meant to get it off you in case Cleffa evolved.”
Hana paused for only a moment. “Yes, I did. It’s actually up in my room if you want to go grab it.”
In reality, said grooming kit was in my bag, which was leaned against the bench next to me.
“Yeah, sounds good!”
We both stood up, but neither Yuji nor Amy paid us too much mind. Yuji gave me a slight wave, but continued to talk shop. Of our Pokemon, only Despereaux opened an eye as we left, though he closed it and went back to sleeping on Artis’ belly.
Hana stepped out into the hallway and I followed. We were up on the tallest floor of the Pokemon Center and it was dinner time downstairs, so it was a ghost town up here. We didn’t walk further than a few steps before Hana stopped and turned back to me. She was still keeping up her mask, but her shoulders drooped in a deeply somber way.
Neither of us spoke immediately, and I quickly realized that I was going to have to initiate if I wanted Hana to feel comfortable enough to share. “Um, well,” I said hesitantly. “What’s up?”
My internal sigh barely kept me from face-palming. Tact or sympathy? I was a master of neither, apparently.
Hana’s green eyes stared at the ground and she shifted in place. “I-” Hana started and immediately stopped. She paused and took a breath. “I’m just struggling, I think, with a few different things. I don’t know, I mean…”
I sighed as Hana trailed off. Whatever she was struggling with, it was a lot. We’d been through emergency after emergency, and I’d only seen her like this after Mt. Moon. She was normally the only sane one in our group, and her being the only one out of it was a lot.
I did my best to channel Mrs. Clara and didn’t immediately speak. I let her statement hang in the air, only giving her a look that I hoped was gentle and beckoning when she glanced up at me.
Hana did start talking again, after a few seconds. “I think a lot of this comes from us splitting up,” she admitted. “It just happened really suddenly, and I don’t know that I’m ready to be apart from everyone.”
I nodded slowly. “And that’s because…?”
“Where do I even start?” Hana chuckled, her voice tense. She was getting choked up. “I said a lot of it during our talk the other day, and I feel awful that I’m even still feeling this way because I agreed to everything that you guys proposed. It’s just- When I made the choice to come here, to the mainland, Yuji and Amy came all the way to Cinnabar to start their journeys with me. I didn’t imagine that I’d be leaving them for an entire month so early in the journey.”
I made a mental shout-out to Mrs. Clara for her methods working, but I really considered what Hana was saying. I’d been worried that Hana was anxious because she had some sort of self-imposed obligation to come travel with me, but in reality, this had to do with the fact that Yuji and Amy weren’t going to be around. Even if she went with them to Saffron, the two of them would still be training in different places.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s valid as hell, Hana.”
Hana pulled a piece of cloth out of her back pocket, a green scarf, and wiped her eyes with it. She paused and looked up at me with red eyes and confusion. “It is…?” The way she said it wasn’t like she was questioning the fact, more that she was confused as to who it was coming from.
I shrugged. “These are your two best friends, and they both have clear goals that have a good reason to split up your group. There is no logical reason for you to stay with them. If anything, it all lines up a little too well, so your reason-bound brain is struggling with the fact that you really love your friends and don’t want to leave them. Even worse, if you asked them not to go, they wouldn’t.”
Hana’s confused expression increased.
I sighed. “Therapy works, Hana.”
“Apparently,” she said, rubbing her face, “though I didn’t think a week there would turn you into a self-expression guru.”
“It didn’t,” I promised. “I just went through a lot of similar stuff, so I’m mostly regurgitating what my therapist said.”
“That makes more sense,” Hana sighed. “So, what do you think?”
“Oh, uh, no.” I shook my head. “Therapy didn’t teach me how to make decisions for other people. I’m still pretty bad at doing it for myself.”
Hana gave me a knowing look. “Based on this week, I’m not so sure about that. Anyway, think of this as me just gathering data points, not necessarily looking for an answer. Do you have any suggestions?”
I thought about it for a long moment. “Well, it won’t solve your problem, but you could always just go to Celadon, like we’d suggested before. You’ll still have to split up with the others, but it’s like four days to get to Saffron from here, so you’d have a bit more time to spend with them.”
Hana immediately shook her head. “No, I can’t do that,” she said vehemently.
I didn’t miss the way she clenched her phone at the thought.
“Damn it,” I muttered. Louder, I said, “Look, I’m kind of going against my therapist’s advice here, but I was going to ask you about it in a couple of days anyway. What’s the deal with your phone? You look at it every time you talk about coming with me, and I feel like it’s the reason you’re so bent on going to Lavender Town.” My brain caught up to my words right at the very end and I clenched my hand. “Actually, no- Damn it. Feel free to ignore that. I’m not entitled to that information, I just noticed it when we talked about this the first time, and I was worried about you, but I don’t want to intrude…”
Hana put her arm on my forearm, cutting off my ramblings. Her mask vanished, letting her body droop and her expression fall even further than she’d allowed before.
“No,” Hana said softly, “It makes sense.”
Hana lifted her phone up and unlocked it. She scrolled past a few numbers and opened a text exchange, then handed the phone to me. I read the most recent message sent to her. It was dated to the day we’d met Lester and Ambrose, the day before we’d fallen into Mt. Moon.
[[Daisy Oak, 20:32]] Hey Hana! This is kind of out of the blue, but I just got off a call with Derek and he was feeling a bit down. I know he's not feeling the same since everything happened at the museum. I know you probably are already, but could you please keep an eye on him? I don't want him to get hurt because he's not feeling 100%. I know you care about him as much as I do, and I trust you.
That hit me harder than Achilles ever could. A lot of things started making sense almost immediately. Hana had gone out of her way to protect me, not just because she cared about me, but because she’d gotten a request from someone she really respected and looked up to. It explained why she’d been acting so off in Mt. Moon, why she’d taken it so personally when I’d endangered myself in Clefariy’s cave, and why she’d been so invested in guiding me through Rock Tunnel.
“Oh,” I said simply. “Damn.”
Hana nodded softly and her hand drifted off my forearm and back to her side.
A beat of silence passed between us. I looked at Hana with real understanding for the first time in a long time. She was tired. Hana had gone through everything in and after Mt. Moon for me, and when she finally left me on my own for a few days, I ended up running into a Rocket.
And even though she would’ve been worried for me as my friend, normally, she’d been carrying the weight of being my chaperone at my girlfriend’s request.
“Hana, I-” I cleared my throat. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel in your shoes, to be honest, and I’m going to be really honest for a minute. Are you ready?”
Hana slowly cocked an eyebrow, but she nodded.
“Good. Well, first off,” I raised my hand over her head like some kind of priest. “I release you from your charge. You do not need to be my babysitter. Not because I’m promising to be one hundred percent safe all the time, because nobody can promise that, but because you saw me through Mt. Moon and your actions have genuinely caused me to work on myself. Your job is done, it’s on me from here on out. Also, you deserve to live your best adventure. If that means that you go to Saffron and then to Celadon so that you can spend a few more days with our friends and then train with Erika, that’s what you should do. I fully support any decision you make.”
Hana was stunned. Her green eyes took on a silvery glimmer and she tilted her head down.
“Well,- Wait,” she said with a tight voice. “Just because I’m going to miss our friends doesn’t mean I want to leave. Even without what Daisy asked, you’re going to train at the Pokemon Tower, and then there’s that grass/ghost type rumor I was looking at-”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “And I support that decision, too. I just don’t want whatever you choose to be because you feel responsible for me, whatever your reasons for that are. And hey, if you do decide not to go with me, I can always catch that ghost type for you and teach you whatever I learn at the Tower.”
“Dhelmise,” Hana said quickly. “The Pokemon is Dhelmise.”
“Ah, okay, I could always catch Dhelmise for you, whatever that is.”
Hana didn’t look up. Instead, her head leaned forward, landing right in the middle of my chest. I hesitated before hugging her, but she nodded her permission. Hana lifted her arms and hugged me back. It was the first one we’d had since the ranger outpost.
“Thanks, Derek,” her voice was muffled by my hoodie. “I don’t know where I’m going yet, but I promise I’ll decide by tomorrow morning.”
“You’d better,” I chuckled. “Or else they’ll leave without you and you’ll have to run to catch up.”
I patted Hana on the back and she stepped back, wiping her eyes with her scarf again. I gave her a minute to collect herself before suggesting that we head back in. I didn’t trust a cake in a room with both Wisp and Amy in it for too long.
Amy and Yuji laughing about something caught my ear. Hana and I turned to look back into the room, and both of them were cackling at Wisp, who was floating in the center of the room near the cake. It was weird to see Amy so enthused about anything regarding my ghost, so I couldn’t stop myself from stepping back into the room.
“Guys,” Hana asked, her brow furrowed. “What is it that Wisp has there?”
Amy was the first to turn around and answer. “A knife!”
“No!” I lunged for the black shape that I hadn’t noticed in Wisp’s mouth, but she deftly dodged out of the way.
“Guys,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Who gave my Pokemon a knife?”
Yuji chuckled. “Relax, my friend, it’s a bread knife. As a show of goodwill, Amy offered for Wisp to cut the cake.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know it’s a bread knife, but now she’s going to want her own knife and there’s no way I can explain that to a challenging trainer, or worse, a gym leader.” I glanced over at Amy. “You’re going to let her cut the cake?”
Amy smirked, puffing out their chest. “Yup! I’m doing a thing that my moms taught me. Wisp gets to cut two slices. I get to pick one and she gets the other one, so she’s incentivized to make them as even as possible.”
I looked back at my ghost with disbelief. “And you agreed to this?”
Wisp rearranged the knife in her teeth so that she was holding the plastic handle at the very end. “Drea dreavus!”
I shrugged. “Alright then, let’s get to it. Somebody cut the cake!”
All of our Pokemon cheered, as did all of the humans in the room. We enjoyed our little party as best we could, because it was the last time we’d be spending with each other for a long time.