》Night rolled over the clear sky of Twinleaf Town, chasing away the pale sunlight filtering through the windows of the Dawn residence.

If not for the sudden plunge into darkness, the two girls might not have noticed at all. Shadi took one peek out the window and sighed. She pushed herself off the chair she was sitting on, her muscles aching, and walked to the light switch of the living room, pressing it lazily.

"That's enough for today," she said, her voice rough. "Go ask Sarah to give you some onions; I'll make a stew with what we have."

On the other end of the table sat a young girl, no older than fourteen. A thick, ashen curtain of hair fell down to her shoulders, tied into pigtails. Her arms were like pale twigs and her knobby knees had that typical red tint common to kids who skinned them every other week while playing outside.

The girl looked down to the middle of the table, where a wooden chessboard sat. On it, her sister's pieces outnumbered hers four to one. She had lost by a wide margin.

Shadi did not fail to notice the shadow of discomfort creeping through the edges of her sister's expression. Her big, green eyes were so different from hers. As curious as those of a Hoothoot. As bright as the moon.

"Niss…"

The tone in which Shadi said those words made the hair on the girl's arm stand up. Alarmed, she tried to wipe the disappointment off her face, without much success.

"I didn't say anything!" the girl yelled, half yelp and half protest.

A tiny smile formed on Shadi's lips. "Words aren't the only way to communicate, sis. Your face is an open book."

Inyssa looked down, fingers strongly closing around the frills of her pink skirt. A red tint painted her pale cheeks.

"Are you not satisfied with our lessons?" Shadi asked, taking one step closer to her. "After I finally agreed to teach you, did you expect to participate in Pokemon battles nonstop? Is that it?"

There was no hint of aggression in her sister's words, and that made it worse in a way. Her cool tone and the faded green of her eyes felt a lot more paralyzing than any shouting or outburst could. Shame filled Inyssa's throat until she found it difficult to speak.

"No… I know that you're a great trainer. If this is what you think I should do…"

Shadi raised her palm, and she stopped talking immediately.

"You're just telling me what you think I want to hear," she declared. "A habit you could do without. You're wrong, anyway. What I want to hear is the truth."

Inyssa sighed, letting her shoulders drop.

"It's not fair, you always know what I'm thinking."

"You wear your heart on your sleeve, and proudly at that." Shadi formed a lopsided smile. "I'll teach you to conceal your emotions when you're older. When I know you won't use it to try and fool me. But for now, all I want is for you to answer my previous question."

The girl frowned with the realization there really was no way out. She hated complaining to her sister because every single time she did so she would be bested with logic and would later feel like an idiot.

"Barry's dad lets him train with Pokemon all the time," she said, trying her best not to sound whiny. "He told me he even got to ride a Salamence."

She didn't elaborate further, and she didn't need to. Shadi let out a dry laugh and shook her head.

"I figured this would happen sooner or later," she whispered to herself. "You're jealous because my kind of training is a lot more boring than your friend's."

"I'm not jealous!" Inyssa bellowed, placing her hands strongly on the table.

"Niss, what did I tell you about yelling?"

Panic replaced anger on the young girl's face, and she sat down again with the urgency of someone caught doing something bad.

"S-sorry," she whispered. "I just… don't get why you're making me do all this stuff. It's been two months and I haven't seen a Pokemon yet. All you make me do is play chess, solve riddles and argue with you about all that weird logic stuff."

Shadi did not reply for almost a minute, her thin eyebrows knit in concentration. She feared something like this might happen; her sister had never been one for patience, and her lessons did tend to drag on a bit.

"I… hope you understand, that Palmer and I have wildly different styles of training and battling," she said, choosing her words carefully. "And as such, our methods of teaching tend to vary, and so do our students. I doubt Barry would last much under my tutelage, for example."

"Barry's not dumb," Inyssa's nose perked up, her tone accusatory.

"I never said he was. He could stand to teach you a few things, as a matter of fact." Shadi crossed her arms and leaned against the nearby wall. "My point is that everyone has a different style, and I'm trying to teach you what I know. Palmer places a lot of trust in speed and power so he can overwhelm his opponents. I…" She paused, and her eyes seemed to lit up for a moment, "…Actually, this is the perfect opportunity for a lesson."

She pulled back the chair to sit on it, and pointed at the chessboard on the table.

"Let's see if anything I taught you managed to break through that thick skull of yours," she said. "I want you to describe what my style is just by looking at this board."

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Inyssa wilted forward, her expression that of someone with a death sentence. She bit her lower lip and stared at the board for a few seconds, lost.

"Come on now, use that fleshy pink thing between your ears. Go through the match again, move by move, just like I taught you."

Her face turned as prune as a raisin while she tried to force her mind to its limits. It wasn't the first time Shadi had asked her to stop and repeat to her every word or movement the both of them had made during the match. It was supposed to strengthen her memory, though she had doubts about that. She worked backwards from the placement of the pieces back to the beginning, and played it again on her mind while scouting for anything that might help her answer. It was incredibly difficult, and she could almost feel the smoke coming out of her ears.

"I… think I noticed something," she said after almost a minute, sweat peppering her forehead. "You didn't try to take any piece for a long time, and after a certain point you took one per turn until I lost."

The faintest hint of pride gleamed on Shadi's eyes. "There you go. You figured it out."

Inyssa shrugged, scratching the inside of her arm. "I still don't get it."

"Fine, let's try another approach." Shadi poked her lower lip with one finger, looking up at the ceiling. "Maybe a metaphorical scenario…"

Inyssa struggled immensely not to let out a sigh. Lessons couldn't be simple with her, could they?

"Oh, I got it!" Shadi smiled. "Let's say… you're in a trainer battle. Your opponent has a Tentacruel out, and you have a Qwilfish…" Inyssa made a face, as if she'd swallowed something sour. "…what would you do to win?"

"I wouldn't have a Qwilfish," she replied instantly. "They're ugly and dumb."

Shadi rolled her eyes. "Alright, for the sake of argument let's assume that you're a trainer with an awful taste in Pokemon. What then?"

She thought for a few seconds before answering.

"I would switch to another Pokemon. Qwilfish aren't very strong."

Her sister's lips formed a thin line, and she realized she was pushing the boundaries of her patience. Blushing, she looked down and tried to find an actual answer for her question.

"I… don't know," she said after almost a minute. "I don't know how I could win. Tentacruel is faster and stronger than Qwilfish."

Shadi nodded; she'd expected something like that.

"I am telling you this because I had to win my way out of a fight like that, and I did." She unconsciously puffed her chest and raised her chin. "My opponent had sent out her Tentacruel to spread toxic spikes all around the field, and I sent my Qwilfish to absorb them without being poisoned. After that I ordered him to use Rain Dance to boost his speed and the power of his water attacks. Then, just to make sure I was going to win, I told him to use Swords Dance and finish by attacking with Liquidation over and over. With every strike he lowered the Tentacruel's already poor defenses and took him down in a matter of seconds." She raised one finger in an authoritative matter, just like Inyssa's teachers tended to do, and smiled. "That… is how you could win in that scenario."

Inyssa gasped with a mix of glee and amazement, her eyes twinkling ever so slightly. Still, Shadi could see the shadow of doubt behind them as well.

"You still don't understand, huh?" she sighed. "Well, I suppose it can't hurt to be straightforward once in a while."

She grabbed one of the black bishops from the board, moving it between her fingers effortlessly.

"I never strike until I am one hundred percent certain of my victory," she declared, and the green of her eyes darkened ominously. "I distract my enemies by presenting to them a false strategy, while I set up the real one without them noticing. And when it's finally time to execute it… there is nothing they can do to stop it. That's what you didn't notice during the match, and that's why you keep losing to me."

The bishop fell on the table with a heavy thump that made Inyssa jump. She'd been so engrossed in her sister's voice that the world around her had started to vanish.

"The problem with my style…" she continued, tone heavy, "…is that not everyone can pull it off. You need your mind to work differently, to be able to do many things at once. And most important of all, you need to be patient." She leaned forward, one elbow on the table, fulminating Inyssa with her gaze. "But you are not patient, Niss, and that's why I'm making you work so hard. You need to become patient and smart."

"I am smart!" Inyssa said indignantly.

"You're clever, which is not the same thing. You see, smart people are seldom as reckless as you can be sometimes."

She tried to find in her the will to protest, but deep down knew that her sister's words rang true. Everything that she said often did, and she hated it.

"I need you to understand this, Niss, because it's crucial. Through these lessons I'll hone your mind until it's sharper than a Skarmory's wing, but I don't want you to cut yourself or others with it." Her voice gained strength, and she could see her face turning slightly red. "It is imperative that you develop the emotional maturity needed to be a trainer, because…" she trailed off, gulping as she looked down, "…because someone as emotional and thoughtless as you, with a mind as sharp as mine… it terrifies me to think of how much damage they could cause. Do you understand?"

For a single moment, Inyssa could swear she saw a voiceless plea in her sister's face. As if she were trying to convince herself more than anyone else. She had never seen her make such a face, and it scared her.

"I…" she looked down, lower lip trembling. "Yeah, I understand. I'm sorry."

For about thirty seconds the both of them stared at the table, lost in thought. A line started to form on Shadi's forehead, and once her eyes went back to that faded, dull green she cleared her throat and got to her feet.

"It's fine, you're doing wonderfully so far," she assured her. "You're right in that I've been a bit too single-minded lately. Tell you what." She leaned forward, the corners of her lips perking up. "If you go get those onions for me you can invite Barry to dinner, and tomorrow I'll give both of you a proper demonstration of a Pokemon battle."

That's all the incentive Inyssa needed. With a huge grin she ran towards the door, her shoulders free of the weight currently pushing Shadi's down. The weight she knew her little sister might have to endure one day, should she fail her mission.

She slouched back into the chair, almost collapsing into it. She let bitterness overcome her from then until the moment Inyssa came back, face buried in her shaking hands. At that moment she did not look like one of the most accomplished trainers in the region; anyone passing by would've seen nothing more than an exhausted, colorless nineteen year old girl.《

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Inyssa's head throbbed, in that particular way it did when she tried to fall asleep long after her body had gotten all the rest it needed. Still, she closed her eyes, buried her head on her pillow and tried once more.

The curtains of her room were tightly closed, and yet a tiny bit of sunlight managed to filter through. A reminder that it was way past noon already. A reminder that she should have gotten up hours ago. There was a lot to be done, after all. Getting some nice breakfast, exploring Canalave City with Barry, finding good spots to train their Pokemon, meeting up with Lucas…

A low growl of discomfort left her lips, and she closed her eyes even tighter. A rush of pain and dizziness shook her body from the base of the scar on her back outwards. Her fingers curled onto the sheets and her nails dug into her palms through them, as tears began to well up in her eyes.

You don't have what it takes to follow in my footsteps.

Shadi's words dug like a knife into her, echoing endlessly inside her mind. She couldn't ignore them, couldn't unhear them no matter how hard she tried. All she could do was close her eyes and pray for sleep to come. Even if it only lasted a few minutes; it would at least free her from… this. Feeling like the ground beneath her was collapsing and the sky was falling down upon her…

She guessed it was true what they said. The truth really did hurt like a bitch.

Taking in a deep breath, she threw her blanket over her head and stood still, waiting for sleep to take hold of her.