CHAPTER 292

I lay my head against the glass of the car, still feeling the dried tears on my cheek. My wrist was level with the window so Mimi would be able to see the streets, and my foot tapped anxiously against the bottom of Melody's car. We'd just driven out of the parking lot, and I was stuck in my thoughts. Stuck thinking about Aubri, and what she'd said to me. Her words, I didn't even bother registering. She had no idea what she was talking about and was just jealous of me, but what had she even expected me to do? To just give up everything I had so she could feel better about herself? Was the only way she'd ever tolerate me be if I screwed myself over so she could benefit? I wasn't asking to be friends, just for a crumb of respect. Clicking my tongue in frustration and wishing the urges to break her left, I turned toward Melody, who was wearing sunglasses and had her brown her tied into a chignon behind her head.

"Are you okay?" she asked for what felt like the thousandth time. "Do you want to stop somewhere on the way to the park? I can get you some food, or a drink."

I grumbled, "Some food would be nice, I guess. Can we stop by an Arlyle's?"

"Sure thing," she sighed in relief.

Sometimes, when I looked at my liaison, I saw a woman built for the cutthroat business that was building a career in Poketch, and other times I saw a woman who had built up these protective layers for herself, but was in reality as soft as a marshmallow.

"Since you don't want to talk about what happened," she said. "I have exciting news, if you want?"

"Good news?"

"Good and exciting," she specified. "Remember when I talked to you about your merch designs? I'll be sending you the ones we workshopped with the team and you can give your input on what you think. If you approve, they'll start getting mass-produced, and you'll get a cut of the profits."

"Woah. I get a cut?"

She nodded. "Admittedly, it's smaller than what it would be if you were working with an actual clothing company, but it's still ten percent of the net sales."

"That seems… really small?"

"It's not! It builds up extremely quickly, you'll see," Mel smiled. "But all of that to say, money isn't going to be an issue for you, even with Ramon and Bobby's play. I'm afraid you won't be seeing much of it before the Conference because of how long setting everything up will be, but next year, they'll be selling like hotcakes."

I did feel better about that. "Cool. Thank you."

"We'll be trying to sell them in Unova too, though maybe we'll drop the knife merch for that one—"

I gasped. "There's a knife?!"

"The blade isn't metal, it doesn't actually cut things." When I sighed, she snorted. "I knew you'd be disappointed about that, but we can't go and be selling actual knives, can we?"

"Whatever… I still want one."

"See? Don't you feel better now?"

"Kinda."

The car stopped at another red light. "I'll take that. You know, it's hard to understand what you're going through, but it's not hard to tell that it's difficult. I know Aubri gave you a tough time, but what she said wasn't true, Grace. I hope you know that."

"Hmhm."

"When I was seventeen, I ran away from home and settled into Hearthome," Melody started. "My parents wanted me to be a man, and they wanted me to be a trainer who'd meet a girl on their journey and bring her back in Solaceon after the year was over. Basically, they wanted me to be 'normal'." There was something of a saddened smile on her face. "I ran away to escape all of that. I was almost homeless for a while, but eventually I found people to help out. Remember when I told you I worked with Mallory a few times in the past?"

Mallory, the woman who had given me my interview in Veilstone.

"Yeah?"

"We were roommates. Her, her future husband she met at a Pokemon rights protest, me and another man, and we were living from paycheck to paycheck for a while," Mel smiled. "I didn't want to tell you because I hate what she's become, but I digress. The point I wanted to reach was that sometimes, two people clash in such a way that means they'll probably always be a little at odds. Maybe you just don't mesh well. Maybe you're just fundamentally different in a way that makes you impossible to be around each other."

Melody drove the car into a drive-through and sighed.

"Or maybe, you're so similar that those similarities grate," she continued, loosening her hands around the wheel. "Because you'd think that you'd be best friends with someone almost exactly like you, but those subtle differences that are still there? They get on your nerves, because you couldn't fathom how someone you think was basically you in a mirror could… say these things. Or in your case, I guess it would be do these things."

She was talking old history. About her and Mallory.

"I think Aubri sees herself in you," Melody said. "She sees another version of her that has a bigger network of support than she ever had, and it makes her angry to see what she could have been. Completely unjustified, but she's still a kid, even if she's older than you. Talented, incredibly hard-working, but still a kid. Just like you."

I didn't really know what to say to that. I was still bitter, with Aubri's words fresh in my mind, so I decided to change the subject. "How were you and Mallory similar? Beyond the ruthless businesswoman vibe."

Mel chuckled. "At first, we met because I found it horrible that we just send fifteen year olds out into the wild, that so many of them are injured or die, and we just find that normal. But then… you know. I started working at Poketch, and I had to put principles behind me, while she went all in on trainer abolition. We just went our separate ways. And now there's this Plasma nonsense— what do you want to eat?"

"Uh, can I just have three large fries and a grape soda?"

Melody relayed my order to the intercom and slowly drove the car forward.

"I'm not asking you to forgive her, but I'm trying to help," she said. "At least I hope that helped."

"It did. Genuinely," I nodded. "Thank you. By the way, what do you mean, your parents wanted you to be a man, by the way? Like, you were raised a boy?"

"Oh, I'm transgender."

"Huh?"

"I'm transgender," she repeated.

I blinked. "Oh. I didn't know."

"Well, from the way you reacted, that's rather obvious. Three large fries, by the way? That's a strange order."

"Their fries are great when they're fresh…"

—

We found my Dad sitting on a bench and staring at Sweetheart with a desperate, but defeated look. She'd found a pond to settle in and was having fun in it despite it being to shallow for her, but that meant she was taking all the space actual smaller water types could be using. I chewed on my final remaining fries and waved at Dad, then, the tension left his shoulders as he stood.

"Thank the Legendaries you're here," Dad exhaled as he made his way toward us. "I don't think I'm very good at babysitting your team, Grace."

"Well, nothing happened, right?" I asked.

"No."

"Then you're good at it!" I smiled. Sunshine noticed me out of the corner of his eye, but stayed down because of how lazy he was. "Things could have been a lot worse. Damaged public property, an injured Pokemon…"

My father blanched, but recuperated quickly enough to greet Melody. "Ms. Summers, thank you for bringing Grace here, I appreciate it."

Ms. Summers? Legendaries, that was weird. Bet it made her feel old, even if she didn't say anything about it.

Mel nodded. "Don't worry about it, I was just doing my job."

"How was the deal? Did everything go well?"

My liaison glanced at me, as if she wanted to ask if I was telling him or not. There was a lapse of silence until I gathered my courage and continued.

"Yeah, it went well. There was this girl, um, who was mean to me because she's been wanting more money, but other than that, it was fine."

Dad frowned. "Nothing too bad, I hope. I can talk to her, if you want me to."

It was endearing, how quickly he got angry for me even if Aubri Schneider's team was strong enough to reach the semi-finals of the Conference, or maybe even further this year. Of course, he didn't know that, but still, Dad had always been a little vengeful even though people are nice enough that I hadn't seen this side of him often.

"It's fine, it's been dealt with," I said. "So? How'd you find this part of the team?"

While my father explained everything that had gone on during their stay at the park, Sweetie and Angel finally noticed me. The former dragged herself out of the pond, water glistening off her plates and dripping down her jagged edges and tail. People had long cleared enough space around her to leave her an open path to me, but Mel and Dad took a step back. Tyranitar left imprints on the ground when she ran, and I outstretched my hands to hug her while someone screamed in the background.

Sweetheart stopped before she could crush me under her weight or run me over, as she always did, and I hugged her even though my hands couldn't very well wrap around much of her body. Placing an ear against her stomach, I felt her plates vibrate as she let out a low growl.

"I missed you too. Sorry the city isn't really great for you to hang out in."

Angel reached us soon after, joining in on the hug, and I heard Melody whisper something about filming this.

"Let's have some fun, yeah? I'm free for the rest of the afternoon— hey, Sunshine!" I leaned to the left to get the dragon in my line of sight. "We're coming, so don't think you've escaped us!"

I released Buddy, and Claydol, for good measure. I didn't really care about hiding the psychic given the fact that people would see them in action when I battled Byron, and it ought to shut down some of the wild theorizing that had been running rampant for the last day. For around an hour and a half, I was with my family, and Dad kept saying they were way better behaved with me than with him, especially Sunshine and Sweetheart. He talked with Mel for a while, and I was surprised she didn't leave. Instead, she just kept filming me and taking pictures for PR stuff, which made me feel a little dirty about not being able to just enjoy some time with my team without having to show others how 'great' and 'relatable' I was for it, or whatever, but at least I wouldn't have to post them because she had access to my account.

Angel's vine bed had lasted the entire time and wasn't killing the grass on the floor at a rapid pace. Only a few patches here and there had died thanks to a trick we'd discovered I'd aptly named nutritional cycling. Maybe sharing would have been a better name. Basically, the vines would take, but they would also give, sustaining themselves and the plants they were using in some kind of closed-loop system. Of course, eventually the plants would die, but it'd take way longer for it to happen. It would be useful for what we were planning against Byron, even more so now that Honey wouldn't be able to join the fight.

I'd be trying to study him deeper, now, and fully throwing myself into his personal team. The most problematic Pokemon of his I could fight were Bronzong, Skarmory, Steelix or Forretress. It wasn't that the others would be easy, but that I had the right tool set to better deal with them. Bastiodon, for example, was an immobile fortress when the field hadn't been set up for him, and would be a sitting duck for my attacks. Magnezone was the one I had the most experience with and fought in a way I was familiar with. It was the same with Aggron, since I'd practiced so many times against Lauren's though Byron's Aggron had a few key differences from hers. Bronzong, I'd already gone over, but the problem with Steelix was his absolutely massive size that would have me run into the same issue I did with Wake's Gyarados, except worse. The sheer amount of power available to it was worse than Jasmine's, but it was still capable of taking down all of my Pokemon other than Buddy and Sweetheart in just a few hits. Luckily, its size meant dodging any attacks was basically impossible, but Steelix could easily run through a team if Byron sent him after dealing with your heaviest hitters first. Skarmory was capable of shifting the metal on her body and could fly even after weighing her body down with Curse. In fact, she used it to ram into others with the full weight of spirits behind her and to power up her attacks. Forretress knew way too many moves to count and was the most versatile of Byron's Pokemon by far. Solar Beam, Ice Spinner, Venoshock... Legendaries, there was a lot, and that wasn't counting the dreaded Hyper Beam and Zap Cannon.

Again, the others could be an issue, Excadrill especially, but I wasn't seeing the angle. Then again, maybe that was the point. To catch me off-guard and lead with something I wasn't expecting at all.

Either way, the team and I were working toward what I hoped would be a victory. Princess would be out of the center soon and be ready to keep training Claydol, too.

Eventually though, I decided to message Mira to see if she'd be willing to hang out tonight, and maybe have me sleep over? She took a while to answer, probably because she was busy, but she did answer and agree to me swinging by, along with her address. Part of me was relieved, because I'd thought things between us were so awkward she'd say no or the dreaded maybe that would have really meant 'no, but I don't feel comfortable with saying no'. The day had started off terribly, but maybe it was salvageable after all. I told Dad about it when we left, and Melody went her separate way, though she made sure to remind me that I'd need to be at Poketch again tomorrow.

Dad's car was tiny. It was still a four-seater, but it was something I'd call cute. It was a light grey and was the second car he'd owned since I'd been born. I settled into the front seat, wrapping my seatbelt around me and reclining the seat backward in hopes of catching some sleep. For a while, we rode home in silence, but Dad spoke up around the halfway point.

"I'm glad you have people to spend time with, now."

"Dad," I complained with my eyes still closed.

"I'm just making conversation."

"I know, but… not now, you know?"

I heard him tap his finger against the wheel. "You know, Lynn and Clarissa called me to ask about you when you were at your Poketch thing."

My fingers twitched. "What'd they say? They never called me even once, so it better not be something about wanting to see me again."

"Well, they did want to see you again," he said. "But mostly they were asking how you were doing."

"Well, if they want to talk to me, they can do that without going through you. I still have the same phone I did before I went on the Circuit. We were never that close, and they probably just want to try their luck now that I'm famous or something."

He nodded. "Fair enough. I'd give them a chance, if I were you, but I won't force you to do anything."

"I don't want to see them."

What would be the point? A few hours spent with people I would never be able to relate to anymore? At least with trainers, there was something to bond over, but they'd never even been interested in battling. None of my old school friends had gone on the Circuit, and even last year I hadn't been able to get that close to them. I sat next to them in class, ate with them at lunch and spoke with them, but I was more of a third wheel than anything else. Less than that, when they hung out with their other friends.

"Well, if you were wondering, they're both going to college after they spend some of their gap years working," he shrugged.

"Why not go right away? I know money isn't an issue."

He shrugged. "I don't know. You'd have to ask them."

"Ha, ha. Nice try."

"Well, I'm glad you have friends now."

"They were friends. School friends."

"I'm glad you have more than school friends," he corrected himself. "People your age you can talk to outside of school."

My lips tugged upward. "Yeah. Me too."

—

Mira's apartment sat in a building much like mine, except it was on the outskirts east of the city instead of the center. I hadn't known much about her home life before journeying, save for the fact that her parents had died in a car accident and her uncle had gone crazy and joined Team Galactic because of it. It hadn't been because of a drunk driver, or anything, from what I knew. There was no one explicitly in the wrong, no one who the sole blame lay upon. I had rarely gone to this section of Jubilife, save for when I left or entered the city during the start of journey, and even then, I'd kept my head down both times and just rushed through. I had noticed that cars tended to go a lot faster than in the city center. Fast enough to be fatal, especially at night when luminosity was low. My father asked me if this was the right address, and when I told him yes, he quickly found a place to park nearby.

Mira's neighborhood wasn't… great. The roads and infrastructure here were well-maintained and crime wasn't rampant like the northern part of the city with all of its abandoned factories and people that had lost their jobs after Sinnoh opened its frontiers to global trade and foreign businesses with Cynthia's ascension to the position of Champion, but it wasn't great. It was like everything here was slightly off-beat. The neighborhood was dotted with a mixture of modest, aging homes and apartment complexes. While some properties maintained a sense of wealth with well-kept lawns and flower pots on the windowsills, others showed signs of wear and tear, with peeling paint and overgrown yards. The streets weren't as bustling as they should have been, especially on a Friday evening with the weekend coming up, and there were more wild Pokemon here than I was used to rummaging through the streets or sitting on roofs and electrical cables linking poles together. Spearow and Starly glared at each other with animosity that I could feel ran deep, a generational conflict that spanned this part of the city.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Dad asked through the opened window.

"Dad, a less fortunate neighborhood isn't the end of the world." I turned toward him and smiled, though I found it weird that this was what he worried about after me having gone on a journey and having Pokemon to keep me protected. "I'll be fine, I have Buddy there with me. Here." I released the ghost at my side, asking him to shadow me like usual. "Feeling better?"

"And if anything like this afternoon happens again, I'm right here, okay?"

"Yup. See you later, and be careful on the road!"

He drove off after a wave, the car kicking up dust from the worn asphalt, and I was left alone facing Mira's apartment complex. There were similarities to mine. The faded paint on the bricks, these ones a dull orange instead of a pale blue and covered in too many cracks to count. The difference lay in the inside of the building. First, the entrance was tight, even for a person as thin as I was, and there was no second door with a key sensor lock to stop people who didn't belong here from coming in. The hallway leading up to the stairs was lined with worn-out carpeting with the sound of echoing floorboards creaking underfoot, and a few men— teenagers were hanging out here with a Machop and Toxicroak, smelling like alcohol and shrinking like wilting flowers as I passed by with Jellicent. Empath or not, it was obvious they were terrified of me. Trainers like me probably didn't show up here very often, and from what I understood Mira was basically playing shut-in, at the moment.

"Luckily she's only on the second floor," I complained, steadying myself to climb the narrow stairs. "I don't think I would have made it up all the way to the top."

Buddy helpfully suggested that Angel could have carried me up, though he rescinded the statement when realizing that these old stairs would probably collapse under his weight. Still, the ghost sank into the cracks in the wall, slithering up the dimly lit staircase while emanating with a glowing blue light. Each step was a trial, and each step kicked up more dust that had nearly started a coughing fit. Mimi seemed none the wiser, sending continuous pulses of excitement at the new sights, though I could tell they wanted to hop off my wrist and explore on their own. Mira's apartment would be a nice distraction for them now that they didn't have to stay hidden, at the very least.

Heaving for air, I reached the second floor by pushing myself on the banister with my left hand and my crutch with my right. Buddy didn't congratulate me, because he knew I wouldn't take it very well to be praised for walking, but I did understand by looking into his shining red eyes that he was proud of me. This was, I knew, a sign that my ankle was getting better. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to climb such a steep and narrow staircase, crutches or not.

"She should be here," I huffed, looking at the apartment the nearest to the stairs. I knocked a few times, and a chill spread below my feet, wrapping around my ankles until Jellicent's eyes flashed and Mira's Gengar squealed in a dozen different gargles, slipping past the door again and leaving a puff of purple smoke. "Nice attempt at a prank, but you'll have to try a little harder to scare us."

Though, from the way Mimi was trembling around my wrist, it had worked on at least one of us. I heard Gengar cackle behind the door, clearly reveling in the feeling of fear and I clicked my tongue.

"Just go get Mira, yeah? I need to get in here."

The ghost left, and with him, the cold followed and I could no longer see my breath. I hadn't seen Gengar since Pastoria, but clearly, he hadn't lost his pranking streak. At least they were harmless now, unlike the time he'd tried to send Louis to the hospital shortly before Mira left the city. The walls here were thin, because even from here I could hear Mira scolding Gengar. It took another twenty seconds for her to reach the door and open it.

She looked… better. Tired, not good, but better. Her long, pink hair was free-flowing and reached the upper part of her leg. She'd grown a little again since I'd seen her, being slightly an inch taller than me, and she wore a drab white oversized shirt and blue shorts. Gengar's presence echoed around her, a writhing, shivering mass of ghostly energy that had the entire hallway feel incredibly cold. Hopefully he didn't haunt the other inhabitants here.

"You're here already?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. "I— I mean, hey. Uh, yeah, hi."

"It's the time we agreed on. Look, before all of… this, I just want to ask, are we… are we okay?"

It had eaten at me, since the raid. One would have to be blind to not see that she'd taken to the torture much harder than I had, even if she'd forced herself to stick around while I'd enjoyed the entire matter. It had been a decision we'd both taken, but she'd overestimated herself and now was hurt. Scarred, even if they were invisible to the naked eye.

Mira blinked, not knowing what to say and hesitating for a few seconds. "Yeah. I think so. I mean, I wasn't sure what I'd feel, but if I didn't want to reconnect, I wouldn't have invited you here. Sorry about the stairs, by the way. If I'd kept better track of time I would have sent Alakazam or Gardevoir downstairs to Teleport you up."

"It's okay. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it," I muttered with a hint of a smile. "And I managed."

"Great. Uh, come in, come in, it's a bit of a mess. I haven't really been cleaning or doing much of anything except keeping up with my training in the afternoons. And Gengy, stop it with the cold, you ass."

Again, warmth returned to my skin as I was let into the apartment. It was more than a bit of a mess. I couldn't fathom someone living here, and I'd never been great at cleaning either, with the way my Pokemon Center rooms always ended up. The place itself wasn't huge, which was fine, but it meant that everything was on display, and it wasn't pretty. Piles of dirty clothes had been thrown haphazardly on chairs, a sofa that wasn't even aligned properly, or sometimes even the ground. There were used plates, soda cans and utensils everywhere, along with a pizza box sitting on the dining room table.

"Um… Gardevoir and Alakazam don't clean up here?" I muttered in the least judgemental way possible.

"Oh, they do. I'm just very good at dirtying stuff up," she sighed in a defeated tone. "I'm sorry, I was planning on fixing up the place before you came, but I just fell asleep. I've been tired, lately. I hope you can still stay over?"

"That's okay, I don't mind."

Part of me subconsciously wanted to peek and see if she'd been lying, then, because I refused to believe they wouldn't clean her place up when they'd done it the entire journey for her Center rooms, but I'd trained to temper that urge and it wasn't like I'd be able to tell anyway. Mira was the only full shard other than me, which meant our powers wouldn't work on each other. She could freely steal, absorb and give away information and memories to any living being, and the subtle twitches on her face told me that she was probably having multiple conversations with herself in the back of her mind. She was an encased shell to my senses, and delving within her in hopes of catching a wisp of color for too long filled me with dread and a sense of being watched by something unimaginably powerful. Uxie, no doubt.

"Oh, by the way!" I tried, thinking of ways to cheer her up. "Your birthday's soon, and I was thinking— if you want, obviously— you could come to my place and celebrate. We could even go out, too! There's this neat bowling place nearby and we could eat out."

My friend smiled. "That… that actually sounds really nice, thank you. Not that I deserve it…" she trailed off, clearing some space to sit down on the couch. There was no television here to watch, so she just looked at me instead, and then my wrist. "Is that the Meltan?"

I nodded. "Mimi."

The steel type morphed back into their original form, though their eye turned to a gray line as they eyed Mira with suspicion. For a while, Mira studied the metallic construct with fascination in her eye that made me think she'd make a good professor. Hadn't she said she wanted to find a job with one, when this was all over? Every time she asked to touch Mimi, the steel type would explode into a dozen needles and spikes and puff up to threaten her, which communicated the message of 'don't touch me' quite clearly.

"I don't think they liked Gengar," I added.

"Yeah, he's been a piece of work," Mira laughed. "Been scaring the neighbors and I had the cops called on me a few times, but they all left when they realized who I was."

That's the League for you, I thought to myself. "You should probably keep him in his ball if he can't behave." Jellicent's huge head bobbed up and down in acquiescence. He was quite proud to have stamped out Gengar so quickly. I knew there was animosity there, with the way he had annoyed Buddy in the past as a Haunter with his pranks that had none of Honey's charms. "Just because you can keep getting away with it doesn't mean—"

A series of high-pitched screams resonated from Mira's bedroom, causing Mimi to flinch and their entire body to wobble. Six cracked eggs hopped up and down on the hardwood floor and eyed up at me, two of them scowling, three looking happy to see me and the last looking so impossibly bored he was basically nodding off already.

"It's nice to finally meet you all!" I beamed, bending forward. "Do they have individual names?"

"They… kind of do," Mira said. "They can feel which one I refer to when I call for them, which is weird. I'd like to ask them how it works, but they don't even know themselves. Alakazam's fascinated by their existence as a gestalt."

"Figures. Uh, speaking of Alakazam, where is he? And Gardevoir?"

"I knew you wouldn't let that go," she sighed, leaning back against the backrest. "I'm sorry, I lied when I said I could have sent them to Teleport you up. They're fine, they're just on some kind of mission right now and they wanted me to stick around in Jubilife until they came back. That's why the apartment is like this."

I raised an eyebrow. "Come on, you can't say some kind of mission and not spill."

"Pauline and Emilia are alone together in Hearthome," Mira said, swaying her head to the side. "They're going to use Gothitelle to intervene in the shitshow that's coming, but she's not going to tell them the full picture. She's not good enough to. That'll make them want to intervene. Gardevoir and Alakazam will be convincing them not to."

"How?"

My friend paused. "By saying the truth. This is partly my fault, Grace, but these people are hell-bent on figuring this out. I shouldn't have told Emilia about my issues," she said, her voice becoming a whisper. I grabbed her hand, softly enough for it not to hurt. "Yeah, I shouldn't have. The best course of action is to scare them into submission. Nothing else will work. Hopefully they keep it to themselves and don't tell the guys in Canalave."

"How do you know Gothitelle will have figured it out?"

She stayed silent. "Can I tell you something?"

"You can tell me anything, Mira. We're friends."

"Uxie told me."

I gulped. Legendary intervention wasn't unheard of, with the way Mesprit had forced me to go check on that cave in Celestic, even if they hadn't shown themselves since.

"Why would Uxie care about that?" I frowned, shifting in my seat. Having found worthy opponents, Mimi had hopped off my hand and was mingling with the Exeggcute, waving a tiny needle out of their hand to scare them and regain some of their pride, which wasn't working at all. Instead, the Exeggcute laughed in their face while Buddy kept watch. "I mean, why would they care about if our friends live or die, as morbid as it sounds?"

"Would it surprise you to hear that they actually… care about me?"

I scoffed. "What?"

"I mean, not really!" She quickly brought her free hand up to signal me to wait. "They try to act like they feel bad about things even though they can't because that's apparently the way Arceus is. They want to be the same."

"So they warned you about this? Anything else they can warn you about?" I asked.

"Other than the scenarios about how Galactic strikes that I told you about already, not really. It's blurry, but our friends end up being involved if we don't do anything, so Uxie proposed this instead. We talk nearly every day."

"Every day?!"

"Yeah. They're always tired by the end of it because they weren't meant to use the Shard to communicate other than for urgent matters, they were only meant to watch. So yeah, that's why the apartment looks like Eterna Forest. Sorry."

"Wait… Denzel's going to be fuming at you."

"Which was why I wasn't going to say anything until the deed was done." Mira nervously licked her lips and sighed. "Too late now, though, since you're so nosy. They should be back during the week, depending on how many days this all takes. They have an ACE Trainer following them while they Teleport in multiple jumps."

"To be honest, you weren't great at hiding it."

"I was supposed to clean things up, but I fell asleep. Honestly, I think I thought we were yesterday, I've been lost in my thoughts for so long that I forget when I am, sometimes."

"Arceus, Mira—"

"It sounds worse than it is," she interrupted. "I can think so… widely now. So much. Anyone would get lost while trying to adapt, I think."

I nodded slowly. "Well, I trust you."

"That's it?"

"Yeah. That's it. Emilia and Pauline are going to learn the world might end, and they'll hopefully be so shaken they stop getting involved in this. Again, I trust you."

I did believe our relationship would be irreparably damaged, and there was a pit of dread building up in my stomach. Mira smiled at me, and I smiled back. It was too late, now. If this was the only way they could make it and be safe, then it'd be better like this.

"Okay. Cool," Mira said.

"Cool. But I'll have to tell Cece, Denzel and Chase about it, okay?"

"Yeah, we're cool," she added for good measure. "Um… can I have a hug?"

I snorted. "Come here."

She was cold. Cold and afraid, shivering as I wrapped my hands around her.

"You know, it feels weird to be back here," she slowly spoke, her face on my shoulder. "This place holds so many shitty memories for me. I moved in when my parents died, and my uncle went crazy over the course of a few years, but you already know that. I don't know why I'm talking."

"You're fine. Keep going."

"I guess it feels like shit, staying here," Mira concluded. "But I can't bring myself to leave and stay in a Pokemon Center because it's the only bit of my past life I have left. Sometimes I just imagine fixing the place up and moving back in with Ernie, but you know, recently, I've been thinking about something. Is it normal that my uncle processed the death of my mother worse than I did?"

My hands froze around her, but only for a moment.

"I mean, I cried. My grades fell, I lost friends, I felt like shit for a few months, but then I picked things up and started living again," she said. "But Ernie never let it go. Sometimes I wonder, is that— is that normal? Am I the one who's fucked up?"

"We all process grief differently, Mira. I think you're— I think you're being too hard on yourself. You struggled. You're still struggling and suffering from depression. That image you have of yourself, of someone that's uncaring and unfeeling, is unfounded."

Mira chuckled. "My therapist said the same thing."

"Maybe I'd make an okay one?" I also laughed. She was warming up, now. Her fingers were no longer as cold. "You've been hurting for years, Mira. And either way, life isn't some… suffering competition. It's not about who's hurting the greatest. That's not what makes someone a proper and better person."

"I hope so."

"I'm telling you so," I pushed. "Now, how long has it been since you've showered? I don't mean this in a mean way, but—"

"I know. You're not like that," she said. She squeezed her arms around me one last time, her hair draping above my shoulder until she took a deep breath and pushed herself off. "That felt good. Thanks."

"Hey, I've got an unlimited supply."

"I haven't showered in two days, I think. It was since Alakazam and Gardevoir left," Mira muttered. "I guess I'll go do that."

"I brought my laptop, so if you want to watch a show after I'm game," I said.

She agreed, but had already closed the door of her bathroom, and soon after she put on some kind of rock music I didn't know that spoke Kalosian. For a bit, I just scrolled through my phone and messaged Dad I'd gotten to her apartment okay, but after around two minutes of watching Mimi feigning death after Exeggcute swarmed around them, I decided I'd better start cleaning up a little bit. Some of the stuff, I didn't know where it went, so I'd just leave it there, but trashing these cans and putting these plates where they ought to be wouldn't be too difficult. I released Angel, asking him if he wanted to be a part of the clean-up crew, something he eagerly agreed to after getting distracted by Mira's Exeggcute, and we got to work sorting through everything. Having to put soda cans in the trash and not in recycling bins pained me a bit, but it would have to do. While we put some order in this apartment, Gengar had apparently slipped out at some point, but there wasn't much I could do about that. It took a bit of searching, but we eventually figured out where every plate, cup, utensil or bowl went, and I washed them with Buddy's help since the dishwasher here didn't work. He still left part of himself with Mimi, though, and with a third eye he had formed. It was one of his new tricks, being able to create new eyes that he could see from. Whenever he stuck to one of the barriers during our Gym Battles, he could only hear or feel.

Granted, being able to see wouldn't do much, but it would be useful to spy and for the fights to come. I hummed a song to Angel until we finished cleaning up, and then realized Mira still wasn't out of the shower. I approached the door with quiet steps and put my ear to it, but the music and the showerhead were too loud for me to hear.

Knocking on the door, I yelled. "Mira! Are you alright?"

It took a few seconds, but she swore and answered, "Yeah! Yeah, my bad, I'll be right out!"

Three minutes later, she was out, clean and with her skin still wet, a towel on her head, and a fresh set of clothes. A one-piece Miltank pajama with a hoodie that I had no idea she'd owned. It was a little small for her, so I figured it was something she'd had when she was younger and still living here, clothing she probably used as comfort. Her eyes widened slightly at the state of her apartment.

"Damn. Thank you for all of this," she quietly said. "Sorry for taking so long, I got, uh, lost again. In thought. Told you it happened often."

"You'd think that superpowers would be nice," I said with a wry smile. "But they've been pretty awful, huh?"

"No kidding. Do you wanna eat? I can order pizza, but I'll warn you it takes a long time to get here. There's that decent Johtohan restaurant a few streets away, too. They make the best take-out sushi."

"I'd cook, but I looked in your fridge and you have nothing—" a squeeze on my arm from Angel interrupted me, along with a protest from Jellicent. "Right, right, and my hands are an issue. By the way, Gengar left again."

Mira clicked her tongue. "Shit. Whatever, he'll come back. Keeping him out of his ball and scolding him is the only way to teach him to behave. I'll order, then. Sushi?"

"Animal sushi, right? I know they eat a bunch of Goldeen and Magikarp in Johto…"

She waved a hand as she grabbed her phone. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Also, don't discriminate! Not every Johtohan restaurant is gonna be like that."

"Right."

After a quick call, we settled in on the couch again, and I put on a sappy show Angel had roped me into about a mute girl trying to become a trainer, starting from her early life to when she made it to be Champion. It was among the biggest Unovan shows released this year from Pokestar Studio, and I had to admit, it was good. So good, in fact, I was willing to start it over so Mira could see it.

"If I have one complaint, it's that the battles aren't that well-filmed. Too many cuts," I said. "And the tactics used are too simple. You're telling me that even when she's battling at the elite level and all they're doing is still using the same 'super effective' moves over and over? Eugh, I hate using that term too much, anyway. And where's the field control? The long-term planning? The actual tactics? You can tell the producers aren't trainers or maybe they just didn't have the budget—"

"Grace, your battle mania is spoiling the show, this is episode one," Mira whined. "I think you're just meant to turn your brain off and have fun during the fights. Sounds like the show is more about the characters anyway."

"I mean, that's true. I like the fact that they actually treat the Pokemon actors as characters of their own. A lot of the time in these kinds of shows, they're just props used for battle." I stopped, smiling as one of my favorite scenes came up. "Oh, it's this! You're going to love it—"

"Shhh!"

Sienna, the main character of the show declared to her parents that she wanted to be a trainer as the music swelled in the background and the first episode ended, and Angel and I teared up. Something about that scene resonated with me, maybe the dedication put on display, or wanting to surmount the odds even while being dealt a crippling blow before her career even began by being mute.

There was just… something about it.

"You know, that was actually really good," Mira smiled. "Would have been better if you stopped yapping."

"I just want to share this with you, Arceus! I was watching it with Cece, but Angel's the one who found it while we were looking for something to watch. She's preventing me from watching beyond episode seven without her."

"That's still like, five hours of content to go through," Mira shrugged. "Enough for a girl's night, I think. Uh, your time at the League was okay, right?"

"Where's that coming from?"

"Just asking. I mean, I know you've been having a tough time too. I'm sorry about your ACE Trainer. At least your Poketch deal stuff is going well, I saw the headlines."

I bit my lip. "Yeah…"

"Fuck. Fuck, I messed up, sorry," the pink-haired girl said through a panicked sigh. "Forget what I just said, let's just have a good time—"

"It's fine. I mean, the deal itself went well, but there was this thing this afternoon…"

I slowly, painfully explained what had gone on with Aubri in the bathroom and what followed, though I kept the urges to squeeze my hands together a secret. Mira had enough on her plate, too much to be worrying about me hurting myself.

"This corporate life stuff sounds so toxic. It's like, they're putting you all in a cage of their own design and having you fight each other. That shit is systemic," Mira said. "The entire system is built to have kids try to take each other down. Aubri's still a bitch, though. Fuck her."

"Fuck her," I echoed. "But you know, even after all these weeks getting therapy and trying to change, I still get the urge to warp the people who wronged me, Mira. They're just as loud as before, and the thing is, I'd be better at it now that I've gotten some amount of training with Hatterene and learned to discern emotions better. Even after hearing Aubri's side of the story, the urge still lingers."

My friend paled. "That's a dangerous train of thought."

"I know. I know, but I can't stop." I was slightly out of breath, now, and I found it hard to focus my eyes. "I try, try, try, but I can't stop, and I'm scared the lid is going to pop open at some point. That all I'm waiting for is an excuse to let myself loose and do what I truly want. Both times I used it, against Mathilda and against Zoroark, it felt good, in the moment. Right." I looked at my hands and noticed my fingers were trembling. "When did I start thinking like this? What would my Dad think?"

Mira scratched her arm. "I don't know. I don't know if we let you get away with it for too long or if it was always bound to be this way."

She hadn't reacted as badly as I thought she would, which was a huge relief. I'd needed to tell someone other than Aliyah and Cece. There was just something about the people I knew only knowing this sanitized version of me that made me sick, which was a far cry from what I'd been like after the raid, wishing Denzel had hidden what I'd done from the rest of our friends.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I just don't know," I whispered as Angel's vines ran through my hair. "Every time, I end up going in circles about this. I want to tell my Dad, you know? About having killed people."

She scoffed. "Are you crazy?"

I shook my head. "I want him to know me. All of me, and all I've done."

"I wouldn't…"

"You aren't me. That's okay," I said. "I'll tell my mother too. Or maybe he'll tell her, I don't know."

For around thirty seconds, there was silence. A moment shared between each other, a time of admittance of how we truly didn't know anything, in the end, even with her being blessed by Knowledge. Countless choices lay before us, choices we had no idea how to approach. We were all floundering through the dark, in the end. Swimming in it and hoping to one day reach the shore. Was Cynthia like this? Was everyone like this?

There was a knock on the door.

"Ah, food's here," Mira said, rising from the couch. "Be right back."

The night continued as normal, but I knew we took comfort in each other's company.

We were wrong.

And that was okay, I think, so long as we were trying to be better.