CHAPTER 219

The battlefield was embroiled in fire.

Ninetales crouched as she opened her maw wide with her throat lit by the bright flames building within. Fire exploded out of her mouth, but where she truly shone was control. She weaved fire like it was a part of her body, and the flames divided outward in ten parts, each going toward Infernape at different speeds.

"Torment!" Maeve yelled.

Infernape's eyes dimmed, losing their vibrant color as the fighting type scrambled across the arena to dodge the following flames. Ninetales lit up with a rage I'd never seen her have as a Vulpix and the flames dissipated into thin air. Her tails coiled around her body and toward her mouth, and this time, a Shadow Ball formed.

"Get in there and Power-Up Punch! Calm Mind too!" She yelled again.

The Shadow Ball flew forward, curving toward Infernape. Ninetale's eyes shone bright pink and I started to feel drowsy.

"Taunt!" Maeve screeched.

The Hypnosis ended, and the Shadow Ball hit Infernape in the leg, exploding into purple smoke that he quickly left behind. The fire type grunted in pain every time he used his wounded leg, but the Calm Mind was already starting to take effect. I was surprised at how seamless it had all been, but Maeve's starter had never been one to not be calm.

"Extrasensory," Louis ordered.

Ninetales howled, and the air in front of Infernape warped. The fighting type struggled against the psychic force, but he kept building the flames around himself until he turned into a fireball brighter than anything in the arena. I covered my eyes as the flames around Infernape jutted out like knives and stabbed into Ninetales, who yipped and slammed him away with her powerful tails.

In a way, the battle was a deadlock. Ninetales and Infernape only had a few moves that weren't fire type and that meant that they would struggle to take each other down. I'd been watching for the last ten minutes, after all. But maybe that was the point. The destructive force that they both brought to the table was nothing to scoff at, and I could easily see that they'd both improved leaps and bounds. Louis took a more proactive role in things, even if he still liked to hang back, while Maeve had slowed down her orders and actually thought before giving them instead of a panicky stream of commands that were only half feasible.

The two Pokemon threw two Flamethrowers at each other, and the explosion and subsequent shockwave rattled the small arena even though the barriers held. Sometimes, I'd see Ninetales attempt to control Infernape's fire, but she still struggled on that front. I'd place her above the fighting type for now, but he was nothing to scoff at and unlike Zachary's Infernape, he preferred to fight at a distance.

"Confuse Ray," Louis exhaled. He seemed to know exactly when Infernape's Taunt had run out, and the problem with Taunt was that Pokemon grew a tolerance to it when used multiple times in a single battle.

A strange ray of light appeared in front of Ninetales forehead and rushed toward Infernape in a straight line. Gone was the wobbly nature of the attack she'd struggled with as a Vulpix. That wasn't it either. More flames converged toward Infernape in an attempt to keep him from moving. Maeve tried Taunt again, but the light only slightly dimmed and wavered.

Infernape attempted to run, to attack to interfere with Ninetale's focus, but nothing worked. The Confuse Ray caught up to him, and he started attacking in every direction. Even himself.

But what surprised me was that he broke out of the confusion in twenty seconds. That had only been enough time for Ninetales to hit him with more flames and another Shadow Ball. At this point, these two were so in tune with each other that they knew every trick and could counter them in countless ways.

After another five minutes, Ninetales and Infernape had been brought to the point of exhaustion, although it looked like Infernape could still keep going for a while longer. Louis and Maeve both recalled their Pokemon and nodded at each other.

"Good battle," Maeve cheered. "Are we doing Bisharp against Empoleon later?"

"Sure thing. Uh, Grace is here!" Louis smiled as he waved. "Good afternoon!"

Bisharp too, huh? I finally understood what they were doing, now. Throwing Pokemon that couldn't deal that much damage to each other over and over, like an unstoppable object meeting an unmovable force. That meant that their Pokemon would struggle more, but improve faster. It was an ingenuous method, especially since they battled each other so much. I waved back at Louis as the arena's employee arrived with a Sandslash that began fixing the arena. The blond boy rubbed his scarred cheek and nodded at me.

"Hi Louis. Working hard, I see," I smirked. "Got your badge yet?"

"Oh, me? Not yet, but Maeve has hers, so she's got the same number as I do now."

"It was kind of underwhelming. My Pokemon were stronger than my badge level, so the first match up was a Luxio, so that was free," Maeve chimed in. "The rest were tough, but I was fighting a Gym Trainer, so I ended up winning with an entire Pokemon to spare."

I patted her on the shoulder. "Look at you! All confident now."

"Maylene was kind of a wake up call," she said as she awkwardly shuffled. My eyes settled on the Gligar on her head.

"He's cute. Where did you get him?"

"Route 214. It took a few days because I was looking for one specifically. You told me it was okay to be picky, and I really wanted one. He's still catching up to the rest of the team right now. Gli, say hi."

The ground type seemed a lot more preoccupied with eating and licking her hair right now, but he spared me a passing glance. Maeve didn't look like she minded, but it was more of a defeated look than anything else. Like she'd already tried everything to get him to stop, but resigned to her fate.

"Nice to meet you, Gli," I greeted, dipping my head slightly. "So. Ninetales."

"Ninetales," Louis repeated.

"Is it true what they say? The curses and stuff?"

"Well, there's some degree of truth to it, but she's not at a level where she'd be able to inflict any kind of curse on you, no," Louis smiled. "She's been quite irritable since evolving, however, and it took some long nights negotiating because of lifespan issues and, I had no idea what she meant most of the time, but we came to an agreement. It has to do with my long term goal."

"He's too embarrassed to say it to anyone else," Maeve added. "He didn't even tell Mira when we met her yesterday."

"Well, it's quite private," he quickly added. "Could you wait a little while we heal our Pokemon?"

"Oh, sure thing," I said.

I'd never seen a Ninetales from up close, and she did not disappoint. Her fur was golden like the sun, and her tails tipped in a fiery orange, and it had no signs of burning even if she'd been fighting in a sea of flames. Even Infernape was burned in some spots. Her red eyes analyzed me as Louis applied potions to the areas she'd been hit, and his hands sunk into her fur every time he dug to get the spray applied to her skin.

"Can I touch?" I asked her with a raised hand.

Louis was about to answer, but Ninetales shot him an angry look. After reflecting for a few seconds, she deigned to let me touch one of her tails. The third one from the right, to be quite exact. I had no idea why it had been so specific, but I respected her too much to go against her wishes.

Plus, pissing off the embodiment of fire that lived for a thousand years might have been a bad idea.

I nearly gasped at how soft it was. It was like touching a cloud— or a stack of feathers. After five seconds, Ninetales grunted and I pulled my hand off her tail.

"Thank you for that," I said.

"Sorry, she's—"

"It's okay. She's entitled to what she wants," I shrugged.

"Do you want to get lunch somewhere, all three of us?" Louis asked.

"I ate a little with Lauren, so not that hungry, but I can order some fries or something," I said.

"Sounds good," Maeve agreed. "Let's go and catch up."

Arceus, Cece would probably kill me for what I ate today. Ice cream and fries? I was pretty sure that'd give her a heart attack.

—

"Now, now, Erin," Cecilia gently chided. "You have to be firm. Don't doubt yourself when you battle. Sat and Comet know you well enough to tell, and they'll begin doubting themselves too. Say it firmly."

"C—Comet, Tackle!"

Cecilia smiled as she observed the Bidoof run up to Slowking. The psychic let him hit him in the gut, and the normal type bounced off like he'd run into a rubber band.

Should I act hurt, my lady? Slowking asked.

"What? No," Cecilia said.

No, no, look. I'm feeling Slow-hurt right now. Isn't that a good one? I'm going to report it to Alakazam and Gardevoir.

Cecilia restrained a laugh. "You have a problem."

Erin frowned. "What is it?"

Cecilia shook her head. "No, no, it was just Slowking."

She wasn't used to Slowking not being able to bring one of her friends into his psychic link, but Erin had never been telepathically spoken to before and she didn't want to give her a terrible headache. Today was Cecilia's day with Erin, but none of the Teleporters had been available, so they were on route 222. She'd wanted to go to the edge of the route to avoid other trainers, but Erin had vehemently refused, since she was scared some wild Pokemon would jump out of the tree line and attack them despite Cecilia assuring her that Slowking would catch any danger.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Cecilia was in a dilemma here. On one hand, she could have released Zweilous to scare off admirers. On the other, Erin would be scared as well. She wouldn't mind speaking to younger trainers, but she was here to train Erin, and the amount of people that had come up to them— both in and out of New Wave— was starting to get annoying. Still, this was practice. It was good for the long term, since she was planning to throw herself to the Sharpedo and enter politics.

"That was a nice, firm command. It doesn't have to be loud, just solid," Cecilia continued. "Now, it'd be good to see if you could replicate that in an actual battle. Why don't you go check on one of your club members with no badges and challenge them?"

"S—sure thing," Erin said. "But before that, I have to ask. Don't take this the wrong way, please."

"Nothing you could say would bother me," Cecilia said.

"Wait, nothing? Really?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"I just think I need to ask for the general safety of Pokemon, okay? This isn't me bad mouthing your girlfriend."

What now, Cecilia sighed to herself. She motioned at Erin to keep going as Comet kept using Tackle on Slowking.

"I know you somehow flirt about weird stuff, but this— uh, I read this and I couldn't help but think, what if—"

"Erin. Please, talk."

"Do you know about this lava plan thing? I glanced at her screen yesterday and it said…" Erin looked around before leaning in to whisper. "Lethal version."

A few thoughts ran through Cecilia's mind, but none of them were concern. The first one was that Grace's aloofness was cute as always. Just imagining her typing that made her smile, but a mental nudge from Slowking made her remember than Erin expected an answer, and she looked more scared than she'd been before she asked the question. Cecilia didn't know much about the lava plan besides the fact that Grace whispered about it in her sleep a lot and that she enjoyed watching her do so.

"Oh, it's just theoretical," Cecilia waved a hand.

"Theoretical way to m—murder?"

"Well, yes, but you know. At a certain point in a trainer's career, you come up with strategies that are too dangerous to use sometimes. Grace just likes to keep them written in her notes. She's very diligent."

"Oh, right. That makes sense. I think?"

"Yes. It's completely normal," Cecilia lied. "You don't have to worry about it. Now, off you go. I'll keep an eye on you, but I've got to watch some of Volkner's battles."

Volkner was going to be an issue, and Cecilia knew it, but if her time with Chase could give her the breakthrough she needed with dark type energy with Scyther, then so long as the bug type scored a hit, she'd be able to cut off their access to most TE's for a short amount of time. That meant that all terrain alteration would weaken or even disappear.

Using a flying type as a lynchpin in an electric type Gym? Cecilia chuckled to herself. Just like Zweilous with Maylene, she was going to take a big risk with this battle, but both Talonflame and Slowking would struggle as well. It could also be the breakthrough her and Scyther desperately needed. She knew he had the power to stand with the others, but they needed the dam to break before Scyther fought like Cecilia knew he was capable of.

"Right away, Cecilia!"

"You can relax, this isn't the army."

Before opening the website to Volkner's Gym, Cecilia opened her messages to Grace and sent something to check on her.

I am currently training with Erin, and it is going well. Have you eaten yet?

—

Cece

I am currently training with Erin, and it is going well. Have you eaten yet?

I chewed through a fry and my tongue, wincing at the sharp pain. My sunglasses nearly fell off my head.

"Grace? Are you alright? Is it urgent?" Louis asked, dropping his fork and knife. He'd ordered some salad with cheese and Maeve had taken the same thing.

"No, no," I said. I quickly answered the text and expected a verbal lashing about my nutrition later. After putting the phone back in my pocket, I continued. "Just Cece. So, we were talking about plans."

"Right. So as I was saying, I don't have a flier, and Maeve's Staraptor isn't big enough for the two of us, so I was thinking of hitching a ride on Pauline's Braviary. Do you think she'd say yes?" Louis asked.

And there was also the fact that Maeve was leaving as soon as she got her license to go back to Veilstone to challenge Maylene again— or another Gym Trainer, in this case. Louis would be alone again soon if he didn't find a solution.

"Well, Pauline did tell me she planned on separating from the group as soon as we finished up Pastoria, but I'm not sure," I shrugged. "Why don't you get yourself a flying type or a psychic anyway? It'd be good for the long term, even after this year. Plus, you're halfway to eight now, right? And even fewer months. If you don't get your sixth soon, you don't know if they'll be ready for the Conference, and that's a whole other issue."

An issue which would be a lot more common if more first years ever made it to the Conference in the first place. The number was usually lower than twenty, although there'd probably be more this year due to it having more people in general. Thirty, maybe?

"I know it isn't to my advantage," Louis acknowledged. "But I don't want to be that strategic with my Pokemon. If one falls on my lap in need of rescue, then I'll pick it up. If not, then I'll move on."

I nodded. "That's fair, everyone's different."

"Come to think of it, Grace… have you seen Justin here?" Louis asked.

He'd told me 'come to think of it,' but I knew it had been weighing on his mind the past hour. I had hoped that Justin would have spoken to him after our short talk, but it looked like it hadn't been the case.

"He'll speak to you. I'm sure of it," I said. "I don't know when, but it'll happen."

I saw it in his face on route 214.

We stayed in relative silence for another few minutes until I spoke up again.

"By the way, will you guys be there for Cece and I's birthday parties? We were planning on doing it in a Center room like usual, but it'll be pretty crowded and we made a new friend that said we could use their property late at night when everyone was gone. You guys heard of New Wave?"

They both shook their heads, and I started telling them about clubs.

—

Alakazam and Gardevoir weren't available today, and the scale of the training I wanted to do wasn't suitable for route 222, so I'd unfortunately have to skip out on lava training today. That didn't mean my Pokemon were inactive, however. Princess still practiced her barriers, and Honey was still getting Screech and Low-Kick down at the isolated beach we'd found. The fact that he was practicing Screech meant that he was far off in the distance in order not to damage my ears. Louis and Maeve, meanwhile, had gone back to train at the arena. I was actually thinking of messaging one of my friends to ask if we could replicate these little one-on-ones. Cece would be nice since I'd be able to spend more time with her, but objectively, Lauren was the best choice. Unfortunately, she only looked at her phone once in a blue moon, so she probably wouldn't even answer today.

I adjusted my sunglasses as I dipped my feet in the sea water. My pant legs were rolled up as high as they could be, and even though the water was chilly, it felt nice. There was unfortunately no sign of the mysterious woman I'd met, which was too bad. I wanted to ask her about her Pokemon.

"Hey, Sunshine," I asked. "Do you want to get started on your explosion thing tomorrow? You're starting to heat up decently quickly."

Of course, he wasn't in the water next to me. He was currently lying on the dry ground, surrounded by a mound of sand that Princess had raised for him, because Arceus forbid he got an inch of himself wet. The fire type hesitantly nodded with a lot less gusto than I'd come to expect from him, but at this point, he'd tried it for years with no progress. Moving around in the air using Shell Trap would be a long term project, but the sooner we started, the better off we'd be.

"You're lucky Sweetie's having so much fun right now, or she'd wonder where all your confidence went," I said, turning toward the speeding Pupitar.

It had recently come to my attention that Tyranitar could learn Surf, but having her float on the water without pressurized air was another issue entirely. My working theory was having her create a surfboard made of rock, but I wasn't sure if that would just sink or not. Oh well, we'd get there when we got there.

I carefully waited until Sweetheart beached herself with the gracefulness and beauty of a Milotic if a Milotic weighed one hundred and fifty kilograms. Actually, it was more, since she'd shed multiple times since then. Now that she was out of the water, I could finally return to Volkner.

A Pokemon had gone under my radar yesterday. Jolteon. A small and unassuming Pokemon at first glance, but it was a lot more threatening than anything else I'd seen. The reason I'd missed her was because Volkner almost never used her. He probably thought that she was too powerful to use on five-badgers, but with Sunshine in the picture, anything was possible.

I'd heard a lot of things about Eeveelutions back when I lived in Jubilife. That the elemental ones could turn into— well, their element. I'd seen my first glimpse of it when I battled that water type specialist in Solaceon with the Vaporeon, and Jolteon was no different. She could literally turn into a bolt of electricity for a short amount of time. The burst of speed she'd get would mean that she'd be faster than even Zebstrika.

The good news was that it wasn't possible for her to maintain it for long, but it was just another worry to add to the list. I'd have to send this one to Lauren as well—

I glanced at the top of my phone and noticed that Cece was calling me. I quickly ran away from the water to hide the sound of the beach, much to Sunshine's amusement. Buddy would have defended me if he wasn't off somewhere deep in the water.

"I'll let you off the hook for now, mister," I amusedly said before answering the phone. "Cece! How'd it go with Erin?"

I ignored Sunshine making fun of me again, this time for apparently making my voice higher pitched when I spoke to her. He was definitely lying.

"It went well, but I have to tell you this! You did scare her yesterday!"

"What? Pfft, no I didn't."

"You did. She saw your lava document. The lethal one."

I groaned and stared at the sky. "Okay, maybe I did scare her. But it's not bad, right? Like, she's fine."

"I made it fine. She'll probably look at you weird tomorrow, still, and maybe ask more questions too. She really thought you were going to randomly kill someone, you know?"

"I'll soothe her worries, don't worry," I said, noticing Angel desperately dragging Sweetheart away from the ocean to no avail. I motioned at her to not get back in the water this soon, and despite listening, she grumbled in protest. "But aside from that, she's making progress? How are we doing on the timeline?"

"Oh, yes. She won two battles today and Comet's working on Rollout while Sat is still trying to get her tail jump down. She'll probably be ready in a week."

"That's great—"

"By the way, Grace. Ice Cream for breakfast and fries for lunch?! I'm taking you out to get a proper meal tonight, and I won't take no for an answer."

"Well, you're making it sound like a punishment."

"Don't get smart with me now. I hear you smiling. Something with vegetables."

"Fineeee."

—

I'd expected Craig to take days or even more than a week to answer my message asking to meet. He answered it in a few hours. Him and his sister couldn't be more different in that regard, especially with how busy he was. I'd heard of him going on interviews with reporters desperate to know what his training on Mount Coronet had been like and what new techniques he had to show for the Conference. Obviously, he kept his answers vague, but he had this suave way of appearing so pleasant, even when he was basically telling reporters off.

And I'd even seen him in a new Poketch Watch ad on TV this morning. He could really act his socks off.

"To be honest, is there anything he can't do?" I whispered to myself.

He'd invited me to a bar on the boardwalk because he'd already been there, so it only took a few minutes for me to get here. I'd expected it to be a lot more… rough than it actually was, mostly because all of my experiences with bars came from movies, but I was greeted by a symphony of soft lighting, cheerful chatter and the quiet voices of a high-leveled battle playing on television. Some tournament in Jubilife with only eight badgers, apparently. A Tauros and a Lilligant were battling, but I could only tell because of the text at the bottom of the screen. The battlefield had been overtaken by thick vegetation and trees grew in front of my very eyes as Tauros rampaged through the makeshift forest. Needless to say, not many people were watching because we couldn't see anything.

But the fact that grass types of that level were able to build a forest from nothing? That intrigued me greatly. And it had literally been nothing. According to the bottom of the screen, this arena had been a default, rocky arena like Maylene's.

If Alakazam had been there, he'd probably launch into a lesson of how grass TE represented growth and not nature or something. I wasn't exactly sure if growth was it, but it certainly fit neatly in the complicated puzzle that was Type Energy.

"Grace! Grace, over here!"

I turned toward Craig's voice, and I was glad to see he hadn't suffered any new wounds on Mount Coronet, although he did look a bit pale. He looked like he'd just gotten a new haircut and he was clean-shaven, so he didn't exactly look like someone that had just spent a few months in the wild, that was for sure. Then again, he'd been back for a few days and there was no way the Poketch Company would have let him appear in a non-presentable state.

I waved at him and quietly made my way to his seat, but I was bewildered to see that the woman I'd seen on the beach two days ago was here too. Her thin frame had been hidden by Craig until I'd gotten close enough.

"Jasmine?" I asked.

"Good afternoon," she smiled, her voice as gentle as I remembered.

"Oh, you know each other?" Craig asked. "Small world. Take a seat, Grace."

That's what I wanted to say! I slid into the empty chair in between them and cleared my throat.

I suddenly felt very out of place here.