CHAPTER 313 - THE BOY CHAMPION

The world around Craig was frozen. The air within the cavern had turned bitterly cold, so much so that each breath emerged as a visible plume, curling and twisting before turning to frosty flakes instead of dissipating into the air like he'd grown used to during winters. Delicate frost patterns bloomed like alien flowers, their fractal designs intricate and fleeting. It was beautiful, and almost hypnotic, in a way. It was a sight that drew him in, that made him not want to blink, that made him want to stay up here forever, where he belonged—

A hand on his shoulder. Craig nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt the touch. It felt odd to say, but touch hurt. Touch was warmth where cold had been moments earlier. Touch was intimacy, touch was antithetical to what he had experienced for the past… Arceus knew how long, standing guard in front of a massive gate with seven blinking orbs; little lights that frantically winked when they should have been dark, at least according to Flint. He'd fought Regice once before.

"Easy there, pal," the red-haired Elite Four member said. "Relax a little bit, alright?" He patted him twice on the shoulder. Surrounding him was his entire array of fire types: Magmortar, Flareon, Houndoom, Infernape, Rapidash, Ninetales and Arcanine. They were the only reason they were alive here and not frozen to death. "It'd be better if you were calm when the time came. Right, Aaron?"

The kid— and it was weird to think he was another member of the Elite Four— was crouched with his gloved hands on the stony ground like some kind of animal. He was watching the door with a shit-eating grin that had ticked off Craig a few times. Why look so excited, when they'd been thrown to their deaths? Even Flint looked unsettled, and Craig knew that. He'd talked to the man a few times in his career and he was usually a lot more jovial than this. Around them wasn't just a cave, it was the remains of a scientific outpost used to study Regice which had been abandoned when the entire mountain had been evacuated. Frozen papers, files, metallic chairs and coffee mugs were strewn about, showing that the personnel here had left in a hurry. The lightbulbs above had popped and were long turned off. Scientific equipment, including seismographs, thermometers, and high-resolution cameras, were left behind, many encased in a thin layer of frost that rendered screens and lenses nearly opaque. Echoes within this massive, icy corridor carried no sound of dripping water. It was far too cold for that.

Craig shivered. It was eerily silent, save for the occasional hum or word from Aaron or Flint.

"Aaron! Focus, you little shit!" Flint yelled.

The boy blinked. "Huh? What? Sorry."

"Arceus, only you could look like a kid on his birthday at the prospect of fighting this damn ice golem…"

Aaron beamed. "So wait, I know you gave us a full briefing before coming here, but is it sentient? Like, can it think on its own?" Aaron shot up to his feet, teeth shining like silver. "Or can it think, but it runs on a set of instructions it can't deviate from?!"

Flint sighed. "Oh, brother."

Aaron tried kicking Flint in the shin, but the fire type master didn't have to move. His Infernape blocked Aaron's foot and glared at him for being so aloof when their lives would be on the lines shortly. Craig could relate, and he dipped his head to the fighting type in thanks. It ignored him.

"You have access to those files," Flint continued.

"Yeah but I didn't think it'd be so interesting until I actually saw the place with my own two eyes, and Cynthia runs me ragged because she wants me to take over at some point." And his eyes seemed to quite literally be shining. "If the world actually ends or I die, I'll be happy I got to see something new before it does! I gotta take it all in before I'm chained to a desk, you feel me? Or I guess even more chained than I already am."

Craig had read up on people affected by their own Pokemon, and he'd met a few of them throughout his career. People online who paid attention to that kind of thing, which wasn't a lot, made lists about the most warped— Valerie from Kalos, Bruno from Indigo, Allister or Opal from Galar— but because Aaron had only been in the Elite Four for almost two years now and he was a relative unknown, he hadn't been in any of those lists.

They were wrong. Craig was good with people. He knew what made them tick within the first few minutes of a conversation, and it was that, which had carried him to where he was today. Aaron craved the new to such an extent that he did not care if it would kill him. He was brusque and impatient, and threw away people who lost his interest as soon as they bored him. This was the person who was supposed to succeed Cynthia?

Flint rubbed the back of his head, and Magmortar chortled. It was a disturbing, distorted sound that sound like something deep beneath the earth. "I think Cynthia underestimated your gusto. Well, so long as you're focused."

"C'mon, answer my question."

Flint wiped the frosted snot from his nose with the back of his hand and rubbed it on his climbing gear. "They're theories, and I'm not the best at explaining 'em, but, uh, what the people who worked here figured out," he scanned the surrounding laboratory with a quick look, "or think they figured out, was that Regice is sentient and generally independent, but runs on a set of rules. Do you know about those fancy AIs they make in Lumiose? By that Gym Leader?"

"Boring," Aaron pouted.

"Okay. 'Guess you don't need the rest of the explanation, then—"

"No! No, come on!"

Craig wanted out. He wanted out so bad.

Flint grinned. "Okay, well, don't interrupt next time. See, Regice was built by the big guy up in Snowpoint as a protector to keep itself safe while it slept or was busy dragging landmasses around, same as the other golems, but it's advanced enough to have an agenda of its own, and its own thoughts, et cetera… yeah, that's how you say that."

"So it can feel things." Aaron tilted its head. "Is it sad, you think? To be separated from its creator for so long? Every time it wakes up, it gets knocked back to sleep despite its best efforts. It has freedom, yes, but it's fleeting. Like it can almost taste it, but it's always pulled away at the last instant." His head swayed from side to side, and Craig didn't miss Rapidash sneering at Aaron, who was oblivious to the fact that half of Flint's team disliked him— or maybe he just didn't care. Craig wasn't a fan, either, but then again he was just a kid, so he couldn't fault him too much. Maybe he'd grow out of it. Opal had, after all. "Maybe that freedom being so fleeting is what makes it valuable, though. Do you think we can have freedom… freedom inflation? It's like, you give someone their favorite meal every day, and they get sick of it, right—"

"Relax," Flint sighed. He ruffled the boy's hair. "Focus. You're our ticket out of here, kid. If we die because you hesitated 'cause you wanted to get a better look at Regice, I'll haunt your folks when what remains of me turns into a ghost."

"You think you dying by yourself would turn you into a ghost?" Aaron snorted. "Talk about having a big head, though I guess that isn't new for you."

"What? Come on, I have a lot of projects…"

"All you do is fight things and shirk more of your paperwork to me. Craig, let me tell you, this guy is the laziest—"

"Should we attack first?"

Craig's words had been like a bucket of cold water had dropped on their heads. The banter stopped, the cold seemed to get to them just a little more, and Flint's back straightened.

"Right now, it's getting colder, but if we force Regice to wake up, it'll get worse even faster," he replied with a grim look. It looked wrong on his face. "I know we're all on edge, but we're here to buy time. It'd be best to just wait for it to wake up on its own."

He nodded. "Fine."

Part of him— no, all of him wished that Coronet being agitated didn't mean Regice just woke up, and that whatever was going on behind those stone slabs of a door would revert itself on its own. He'd been good at ignoring problems, when he'd first started out. His hand went to Roxie's Pokeball, and he remembered her as a little Bagon. Knowing that Aaron's curiosity was insatiable and he was in no mood to talk, he closed his eyes and recalled his childhood.

—

Salt clings to his nostrils and he hears the sea batter the brick walls of Canalave's canal off in the distance. It's slightly past noon, and the streets are packed with people going out for lunch. Sometimes, Craig would make a game of trying to figure out their deal from just a look from his backyard, and he'd think of how he'd approach them in a conversation. Why is that man walking so quickly? Does he only have an hour-long lunch break, or is he in a hurry for something else? Why is the usual Fearow that hangs on the roof of the nearby office building not here today? Why does this Falinks have eight individuals instead of the usual six, and why are they wandering the city streets on their own? Why is this woman laughing while talking on her phone?

Why is this girl his age looking at her Pokeball like it hit her?

Okay, that one, he understands.

Today, his game is cut short. His father opens the door with Lauren holding his hand. His father is a stout man whom Craig is already taller than, even at fifteen, but their hair is the exact same. Short and as dark as the night sky. His old man adjusts his glasses as Lauren tries to pull away her hand from him. She's never liked physical contact, even as a baby. There are more signs, and Craig's mother wants to check for a diagnosis for autism of some kind, but his dad is resistant to the idea. It's caused a lot of fights and yelling.

He kept saying Lauren is normal, like he was ashamed of her.

"Let her go, Dad," Craig says, a little weaker than he would have liked. "We're in the yard, she's safe to wander."

His father grimaces, and for a moment, Craig thinks he's going to fight him, but he relents with a sigh. Lauren looks like she's been freed from prison, and she beams at Craig. His chest feels warm.

"Thank you Cwaig," she whispers. She doesn't speak very much, except when talking about Pokemon or battling. She's very smart about it, for a six-year-old. Smarter than Craig was when he was ten.

"No prob'," he replies, and watches her grab a small, digital camera that's strapped around her shoulder. With it, she begins to take pictures of passing Pokemon to put in her album later. She draws the ones she really likes in her picture book, and she's pretty good at it, for her age.

His father leans against the fence and takes a deep breath. "You know, I… I'm sorry for how I've been to her."

That takes him aback. "Huh?"

"I've been pretty horrible— and I want to blame work, or… or stress, but I've just been a bad father to her."

"Oh."

Well, it's hard to know how to respond to that, even if he somewhat agrees. To him, he's always been great. Said that he would go places, and believed in him so much that he used all of his connections to get him a Bagon from the Hunters in Solaceon at a very generous price. They could afford it— his father works as a City Councillor and had invested his money very smartly, while his mother is one of the best heart surgeons in Canalave. He had the connections, and she made most of the money.

Not that he'd used his Bagon appropriately anyway. Roxie liked him well enough, but listening to whatever he said in battle was another matter entirely. Four months into his first Circuit, and all he had was Byron's badge, and he hadn't caught a single Pokemon yet. Tried, yes, but succeeded, no. His throw and aim is too horrible for it no matter how much he practices and Roxie's too lazy to fight wild Pokemon most of the time.

"Uh, I mean I'm glad!" Craig quickly answers. He watches Lauren snap a picture of a group of Pidove flying overhead to distract himself. "Yeah, that's great. You talked with Mom?"

"Apologized, mostly. I'll apologize to Lauren too, when she can understand, but I actually wanted to talk about you. I didn't think you'd come back so soon after leaving the city. You've got your badge, don't you?"

Craig winces. He expects his Dad to yell at him. Something like 'we got you a Bagon, and all you can do in four months is get one badge?!' or 'We spent all of this on you and you can't be assed to win' or 'I think battling isn't for you and we should look into getting you formed for a job like your friend George from High School.' Instead, he smiles and pats him on the shoulder.

"I don't know much about battling, son, and I want you to know I believe in you as much as I did before you went on this journey, but I need to know if you're making use of your time efficiently. Hanging out around the house is nice, and I'm happy to see you again, but…" his father rubs his chin and ponders what to say. "All you're doing is staying home and browsing trainer magazines or your internet."

He cringes at 'your internet'.

"I'll leave soon. I just needed a reset to figure out how to beat Roark and get through to Roxie."

Roark is the new Oreburgh Gym Leader, and he's a hard ass despite the fact that they're basically the same age. Craig is certain the only reason he hasn't been fired yet is because he's Byron's son, and he's been a major block for new trainers. Plus, seeing someone his age so successful already makes his stomach hurt. He had considered skipping him, but the truth is he's terrified of going through Eterna Forest, even if the grass type Gym Leader in Eterna is considered one of the easier ones because of how gentle she is.

"What I do know is people," his father continues as he leans against their white picket fence. "Connections are important, son. The most important aspect of a man's life. How else do you think I got you Roxie?"

He knows. He's heard the story a million times.

"You're saying I should be doing… outreach?"

"Exactly. Meet people, Craig. Meet people and network," he says. "Even if you don't progress as fast as others, you should still meet people. That'll go a long way, trust me."

"I guess…" he pauses, swallowing something in his throat. A cold gust of wind rushes through their yard, and he shifts around. "Dad, I want to be a trainer, but… it's hard. I know so much, but it's— what's the point of knowing step fifty if you don't know step one?"

He feels his Dad's warm hand rub the back of his neck. He brings Craig close and kisses his forehead. "I'd give you advice if I could, but that's out of my wheelhouse, son. A man has to walk his own path."

"I just gotta figure out how to get Roxie to understand that we should work together. Half the time, she's too lazy to fight, and when she wants to fight, she does her own thing, and she's not very smart. Don't tell her I said that, though."

His father snorts.

"It's not funny!" Craig yells, all defensive. "It friggin' blows."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out in due time, son. Your mother and I will help you for as long as you need it."

That's not what he wants to hear right now, but Craig smiles anyway. "...thanks."

He looks to the sky. "You've stumbled, I won't lie. But that's okay, kid. Not everyone can be a Cynthia. You've got to find your own rhythm. You're a harder worker than all of those kids laughing at you."

Craig's eye twitches. There are… a lot of people who liked to make fun of him for having gotten a dragon from his parents, yet still failing so terribly. Most of them had surpassed him already, and they were part of the reason he'd left Oreburgh.

So frustrating.

They speak for a while, until his father has to go inside and help his mother cook lunch. Craig hesitates to release Roxie, and despite knowing it would bring a headache, he looks to his sister and calls out to her.

"Hey, Lauren!"

It takes a few tries to get her to realize he's speaking to her, but when she looks at him, she glares. A tiny Pichu had walked up just beyond the fence, and his yelling scared it off.

"Stupid," she insults him with a clenched fist. Tears build up to the corner of her eyes, and Craig scrambles to make things right.

Roxie the Bagon appears within their backyard in a flash of scarlet, and instantly, Lauren is smiling again. The dragon is, too. For some reason, she likes hanging out with her more than she likes hanging out with Craig. Probably because she doesn't order her around.

"Woxie!" Lauren beams, yelling for the first time today. She runs to the little dragon and stops her face only a few inches from her before she takes another picture. Craig is content to hover around the two. Roxie isn't aggressive, for a Bagon, and the problem with her had never been violence. "I missed you!"

Bagon… purrs like a Glameow and wiggles her little arms. Lauren tells her about her day in pre-school and about how she's already known all the types and what they were effective or not effective against 'forever' already and that she thinks the kids in her class are all stupid. Craig knows from his mother she got in trouble a week ago for calling another girl an idiot for not knowing what a Revavroom was.

"I watched your Gym Battle, Cwaig," she says to him. His heart sinks. "I watched it…" she stops to think, then looks to her fingers before counting out loud. She counts until she gets to fourteen, and Craig doesn't want to interrupt her. "Woxie was so cool when she took out that Bwonzow! But I have— I had a question."

"Sure thing," Craig says. He is extremely relieved she didn't mean his numerous attempts against Roark. To Lauren, he's still a great trainer, and shattering that image would hurt him.

"Why didn't she use… that fire thingie."

"Ember—"

"Embew! I knew it was called that," she huffs and crosses her arms.

"Well, that Bronzor has the ability Heatproof, and Roxie's Dragon Breath is a lot more powerful than her Ember, too, so we were better off holding off on the fire type moves," he explains. "But if Ember was stronger one could argue that it'd be better even with Heatproof because…" Roxie's eyes narrow at him, and he lets it go. It's best not to offend her today.

Lauren's look scares him. It's as if she's matured ten years and is absorbing every single ounce of information out of his mouth.

He stays with his baby sister for a while. He has dinner with his parents, and that night, he decides to talk to Roxie.

It doesn't go well. He gets angry, maybe a little too angry, and she thinks he can't bring her to the heights she deserves. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They can't work together, so they keep losing, and she keeps thinking it's all his fault and none of it is hers. Craig spirals— comparing himself to this or that person of his year. What Pokemon had they caught recently? How different was their training? How did they perform their last Gym Battle?

He takes it all in. Despite wanting to scream and slam his fist on his desk, he takes it all in and finds a calm he hasn't felt in months.

Connections.

He had to talk to more people. Some would laugh at him. Some would give him to cold shoulder. It didn't matter. This was his dream, and he wouldn't give up because he had stumbled at the starting line.

He would take them all in, too.

The next morning, he decided to leave for Oreburgh again.

Lauren cried. He could almost imagine her wails now.

"But I don't want Cwaig to leeaaaaaave—"

—

"Shit," Flint croaked. "I think it's time."

Craig opened his eyes again and was met with nothing but dreary, moist cold to replace the sun of Canalave. The lights on the massive slabs of ice-covered stone were all lit up, now, and a menacing wave of frost leaked from the slit at its center. Aaron was quicker on the draw, releasing all of his Pokemon that could fight at a distance and were excellent disruptors. Flygon, Yanmega, Dustox, Beautifly and Vespiquen. Craig ignored the instant buzzing in his head from Aaron's Vespiquen and released his own Pokemon, too. Hippowdon, Eelektross, Salamence, Typhlosion and Orbeetle for now, then Gyarados would come when they had more space to use. They were far enough away from the doors that they wouldn't get instantly frozen. Regice had a range— a sort of bubble where everything around it would reach zero Kelvin despite the fact that that was scientifically impossible. Everything in its vicinity would freeze in an instant, and any but the strongest of attacks would dissipate like they hadn't even existed in the first place, according to Flint, and that was why Regice always took the longest to deal with. The attacks that did hit, would be far weaker than they should be, and they would only do so because Type Energy went beyond science.

It wasn't quiet anymore. There came the subtle crackle of spreading ice, and their breaths combining into a loud hum. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but froze before it could trail down to his cheek. His throat felt dry and constricted, making it challenging to swallow past the lump of fear lodged there.

"Remember, no Teleportation, or you'll instantly be frozen," he whispered to Dot. "That means remote Teleportation is going to be useless too. Just keep a barrier around us and try to conserve as much heat as you can. This is going to be a long fight."

The Orbeetle's lights shone in her approving pattern, but she stayed quiet. She could have spoken, but was so, utterly focused on conserving energy that she would only do so when needed.

Seconds later, the doors slowly slid open. Cold mist slid from the opening and clung low to the ground. At first, Craig could only see the flashing lights within the cold and hear the noise it was making. A high-pitched scream that sounded like it'd be right at home in a glitching computer. Then, he saw its form. Huge, hulking pieces of ice given form. So ancient, yet so pristine that he could see the countless fractals inside of them even from this far—

A flurry of attacks of every type began, and Craig's body vibrated at the sheer amount of power that resonated through the cave, like he was sitting in front of a speaker in a concert. Regice was instantly hit, and the impacts hid it from view again, but retaliation didn't immediately fall upon them like Craig had expected. Regice was slow to act. Ice around the lab grew and shimmered, yes, but it did not try to kill them right away. Maybe it was because it had just woken up, or maybe there was another reason for it. Craig didn't care.

Regice's sluggishness was exasperated by the countless blasts that Aaron's bugs sent it in an attempt to overwrite the Legend with information. This was the key to their victory. Regice faltered, and Craig heard it crash into some kind of wall before it got its bearing again, and finally, the first shoe dropped.

Fighting a Legendary was less about countering moves and more about battling an element or a concept, Craig would quickly find out. It was not a beam of ice or a frosty breath that Regice drew upon, but the howling of a cold wind that would leave anyone out of their security zone frozen. Crystalline shields that were so pure they looked like windows. An endless hail with shards as large as his head. Blasts of pure Winter that were morbidly beautiful despite the fact that the cold seeped past Orbeetle's barrier every time it hit and he could barely stand. Their shield was less of a circular bubble and more of a multilayered, enormous wall that ran the entire width of the corridor, and it would be until they got more space. It was the demarcation within absolute zero and a temperature fit for the poles. Flint would sometimes order his Pokemon to attack or broad strategy, but was content to mostly watch and was more preoccupied with keeping Craig and Aaron's heads sharp. Aaron, meanwhile, managed every aspect of his Pokemon's movements. Dot was good enough to allow attacks to pass one way, but not the other.

Slowly, they were walking backwards, and Regice was advancing, though it was slowed massively thanks to a multitude of reasons, mostly Aaron. It stumbled in the air like a drunk man and when it screeched, it took everything Craig had not to lay down and give up. To not get lost in the cold.

It was a siren's song. A comforting, yet deadly and hypnotic power that commanded him to lay down and to be frozen as so many had been before.

He wouldn't. Couldn't. For Sinnoh, for his family, for his Pokemon, for his friends, for the world, he would remain standing no matter what comforting whispers Regice lay within his brain.

He had, after all, never been one to give up easily.

—

It is now six months into Craig's first Circuit, and he carries with him the Coal Badge. Every day, he polishes his badges with a wipe and metal polish. He doesn't understand what all the fuss about those new digital badges is about. What's the point of winning if you aren't going to be able to hold your badges between your fingers?

It was not a breakthrough with Roxie, which had afforded him the victory, but a lucky break. Roark had been sick with a nasty flu and had relegated his Leader duties to his trainers, meaning that he actually won… well, not easily, but it wasn't all that close. Roxie had handled that Cranidos quite well, keeping her distance instead of fighting it head-on like she usually would. Maybe she'd been tired of losing too. He spent a few weeks in Oreburgh speaking to trainers, still. He really should have started doing this sooner. For example, weeks ago there had been a party hosted by a second-year in a rented office north of the city to brainstorm ways to win against Roark, and there he had let himself truly shine. Craig knew things. He knew what moves each Pokemon had, he knew how to best counter Roark's anti-grass, water, and fighting tactics, and he was content to exchange ideas with others. There was a difference between knowing things and having the skill to implement them, but it still gained him quite a few favors, and he was good at remembering faces and names. Favors, his father would say, are more precious than any amount of money he could ever hope to make.

He left Oreburgh with newly gained confidence.

Of course, he had new Pokemon with him, too, but they were terrible fighters. A Tynamo that he had caught next to the Floaroma power plant because Cynthia had come back from Unova with an Eelektross, and the idea of owning the same Pokemon as her was too cool to pass up. There was also an unplanned Magikarp who he had saddled himself with on accident while trying to fish for a water type to beat Roark near Floaroma.

Garrett the Magikarp. Paige the Tynamo.

They're both horrible fighters. Craig had considered letting Magikarp go, when he'd first caught him on accident, but the fish had a look in his eye you couldn't help but pity, and so he saddles himself with him every day.

At least he's hilarious. A nice break from Roxie's antics.

Paige is shy and mostly keeps to herself. She doesn't really like Roxie or Garrett. To be honest, she doesn't really like Craig, either. He knows why. He caught her by surprise and captured her before she could ever realize what was happening. It's his fault, really, but every time he asks if she wants him to release her back where he found her, she shakes her head for some reason.

They always taught him that to capture a Pokemon, you weaken it and throw the ball. It was ingrained in every kid's mind, and if they hated you for it, well, you waited until they came around unless they really didn't want to work with you, in which case you released them. He'd fallen victim to that idea, too. It wasn't right.

As terrified as he is of Eterna Forest, he wants to push to get three badges by the end of the year. Three is better than the average of two for a first-year, and being average is what he dreads, so he makes his way to the Ranger Outpost with only his Pokemon to keep him company. He's considered traveling with someone, but every time he tries, he realizes they're better than him, and he hates it.

No, that's wrong. Some of them are worse, but they all progress faster. Pick up things that he just can't.

The Ranger Outpost is just like in the pictures. An area surrounded by an electric fence that mostly acts as a deterrent, with a few buildings here and there. A Pokemon Center and Mart, a few buildings for people living there, and the Ranger Station itself towering over every structure built. Most of all is full of trainers, and that makes his face warm up with excitement. Instead of training like he should, he spends the next day speaking with anyone he could find. Yes, hello, my name is Craig, what's yours? Who's your favorite Gym Leader? Who's your favorite trainer? No, someone other than Cynthia, that's cheating. Mine is Crasher Wake! Have you heard about the weird stuff going down in Hoenn with Aqua and Magma? I hope their Champion has a handle on that, ecoterrorists are nasty. Oh, that's your starter? They look cool, do they have a name?

He remembers each one, and evidently, he makes an impression, because that night, he's invited to a meeting with five other trainers. They want him in their group to cross the forest.

"Six should be a good number. Not high enough to be too chaotic, but still large enough to deter most things if we handle it correctly," a girl says. Their leader, evidently. She speaks like one, and the entire group looks at her.

What was her name again?

He never forgets…

He feels cold, all of a sudden. He remembers that she had a small scar on her shoulder, that she had a Hoothoot, a Kakuna and a Cherubi, that for the first time, she made him feel at home about the prospect of traveling with people who were almost all more put-together than he was.

Craig looks within the depths of his mind, and worlds blur. Regice in one, his childhood in the other, and when ice leaks through Dot's barrier around Dustox like it has a mind of its own and freezes the bug in place, he remembers why he forgot her.

He never goes with them. That night, a group of trainers come back from the forest injured to the point that some will have to give up on their career, and that makes him anxious. Too anxious to show up the following day. He leaves the outpost at dawn and decides to hike back to Floaroma.

A week later, he looks the girl up.

She died in the forest.

He forgets her so it doesn't hurt.

—

"Dustox!" Aaron called out. He whipped out his Pokeball in a flash, and the bug type disappeared. Craig didn't know if it was alive, or dead, but it would depend how deep the freezing had gone.

He ordered Hippowdon to shift the earth beneath the ice, and tons upon tons of mud swallowed Regice whole to buy them some time, but it just froze within a second, and the most time they could have gained from that is even less. It had been an hour since starting to fight Regice, and they finally managed to exit the frozen lab. A vast cavern opened up to them, which meant that they would finally be able to get space, and that meant Garrett could come out and fight. Flint, Aaron and Craig all climbed on Roxie's back and fled a mile away, recalling all of their Pokemon but Dot so she could keep them warm.

They landed on a small platform, and instantly, Flint brought out his fire types again. A mere thirty seconds without them, and Craig could barely move his hands. When Aaron did the same, Craig followed suit, including Gyarados. The enormous sea serpent grew, grew and grew until he roared at Regice, but ice grew around his mouth and sewed it shut the moment it came into view. In an instant, the cavern transformed into a place fit for winter. Ice, snow and hail covered the entire area within just a few seconds.

Flint was too focused on defense to strike, save for his Drifblim and Steelix, which he had now brought to the fight, and so the majority of the firepower was Craig's job. He ordered Gyarados to break the ice, but it was only Roxie's Fire Blast, combined with a stream of magma from Flint's Magmortar, that managed to melt it even if those two attacks hurt Gyarados, too. He bit his tongue so hard he tasted metal and told Garrett to use the largest Hyper Beam he could gather.

Garrett inhaled.

Charged particles of energy crackled and snapped, casting eerie shadows across his scaly hide. The air around the beast thickened, tinged with the unmistakable scent of plasma. The light merged into a swirling vortex of white energy that seemed to distort the world around it, and a lucky blast of disturbing buzzing from Vespiquen, Beautifly and Yanmega bought enough time for Garrett to let the attack loose. The colossal torrent of energy erupted from his gaping maw, a blazing beam of pure destructive power that tore through the air with unstoppable force. The light was blinding, a radiant column of incandescence that seared Craig's eyes even if they were reflexively closed. When he opened them, he saw that the Hyper Beam had for a moment torn through Winter and hit Regice, tearing through its aura of cold and protective ice shield and causing it to explode in more frost that looked like flowers.

The ground around the point of impact had cracked with spiderweb patterns radiating out as the frozen surface met the heated energy. Yet, as the smoke and steam cleared, Regice stood largely unscathed, its icy form glowing even brighter against the scorched earth around it.

An hour since the fight had begun.

They were just beginning.

—

It's going to be his second year soon, and his first one is over. It feels like more time than that has passed, but his mom keeps telling him that his career has just begun and that he has nothing to worry about. His parents get tickets for the Conference that year so they can spend an entire month on the Lily of the Valley island. It's his third time at a Conference— his first since becoming a trainer— and it's just as grand as the last two. Lauren is just as enthralled in the fights as he is, and she draws the ones she likes the best in her picture book. Plus, he's a trainer now, and it's here that he can possibly make connections even if he's not a participant. This year, he's rooting for a generalist called Frankie Hubbard with a Luxray as his ace. He's always liked generalists, but maybe that's because he wanted to be the best one. He sits on a bench on the side of the pedestrian road while his parents have gone to get a few snacks to hold them over until today's match, watching Frankie's previous match on repeat on his small flip-phone. The quality's awful, but he's grown used to it by now.

"Pfft. Frankie v Samantha, really?"

Craig turns toward the voice behind him and sees a girl his age, or maybe a smidge younger. She carries a sleeping Skrelp in her arms and sneers at his screen. Her hair is white, and he doesn't know if it's dyed or natural, and it's arranged in a bob-cut that looks awkward on her, like she went to the hairdresser to look nice for the Conference and they completely failed. She straddles the line between gaunt and thin, and her skin is rather pale.

"Ever heard of personal space?" he counters. What's her deal, anyway?

"I'm just saying," she says. Her voice is a little flat. Like a text-to-speech program. "Frankie won, but he doesn't have a chance of making it past the semis. I'm guessing that you're rooting for him, seeing as you're forcing yourself to watch his battle on this antique device that you call a phone."

His eyes meet hers. They're hazel. "Okay. Who do you think is going to win, then?" he asks.

"Easy. Aiden Scott."

Craig scoffs a little too loud, and her Skrelp awakes. It glares at him, but she runs a finger on its head, soothing it. "Sorry, but I mean, Aiden? Really? Mister 'I can barely get out of the group stages' Aiden Scott?"

"His group was bad for him," she deadpans. "He was put with one of his traveling companions who knew exactly how he fought, so he lost, and the second one could have gone either way, but he was fighting a veteran while he's only a third-year. The rest of his fights were smooth sailing."

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"His team blows. He has a Bibarel!"

The girl wrinkles her nose. "Well, he's fighting among the best and you're not, so maybe it's your team that sucks." Her eyes wander to his three Pokeballs, and he stands to stare daggers at her.

Wait. She's taller than him.

"What about you? I don't see your little Skrelp here going very far."

He thinks his words will hurt her. Instead, she laughs, breaking her hardy stare for the first time and injecting emotion into her voice. "I'm not even a first-year, you idiot!" she doubles over and nearly crushes her Skrelp, but stops when the poison type exhales at her. Yes, exhales. There isn't a better way to describe it. "I'm starting this September. Meanwhile, what are you? You look like someone with self-confidence issues, so let me guess, you had a less-than-successful first-year and now you cling to hope that this year will be different."

His throat tightens.

She's good at hurting. Far better than he is.

"Okay. If you're so sure if yourself, why don't we have a little bet." He tries to sound confident, but knows she sees right through him. "If Aiden wins, 10k to you. If Frankie wins, 10k to me. If neither wins, we draw."

"Sure. I'll never turn down free cash, and I'll need it for my journey."

His teeth gnash. "What's your name?"

"Sarah Newman. Yours?"

"Craig Goodwill." His parents call out to him, and Lauren waves at him. "I gotta go. Uh, give me your number so I know you won't flake."

"Excuse me? So I know you won't flake," she repeats, this time aimed at him.

—

Why did he always think about her every time he was close to dying? The first few times he'd gone to train in Coronet and he'd had a bunch of nasty run-ins with Pokemon wanting nothing but for him to leave, he thought about her. When he was attacked by Team Galactic near Snowpoint and got clawed on the leg by that Purugly because he'd tried to reason with them instead of allowing Roxie to fight, he'd thought of her.

Magmortar aimed his cannon upward, from which magma erupted and gathered in the sky, floating there as if it was levitating. It pooled to the ceiling of the cavern, far enough from Regice to be allowed to exist, but even then it took the fire type all of his strength and concentration for the next move to work. The magma burst down toward Regice beyond the speed barrier like rain, cutting into Regice and warming the entire area enough to allow Flint's Steelix to hit the Legend with a fiery tail. The impact itself probably didn't hurt Regice all that much, but it was enough to send the ice type away and gain them a little distance.

For it, Steelix's tail froze and shattered with a bare look from Regice before it could retreat back and keep throwing out Fire Blasts. The battler in Craig instantly noticed that the steel type struggled to stabilize itself with so much of its body missing, but Regice was no battler. It was a living being, yes, but it embodied too much to notice the little things like a Steelix with balancing issues. Aided by Typhlosion and Magmortar, magma fell upon the world and met frost, and Dot was quick to shield every Pokemon outside their bubble, fitting each with something akin to a roof above their heads.

She'd come far in a year. She was micromanaging this entire fight, be it protecting everyone at once, keeping them warm with the help of Flint's fire types.

Ice vaporized to mist, but froze before it could rise a mere foot from the ground. It gathered around Regice, spinning ever closer to its pristine skin, and then exploded in a burst of countless bullets of ice that shredded through rock and wounded Pokemon. They were large at first, but then split, split and split again until they were the size of bullets, and tiny projectiles at high speed were exactly how to break through psychic barriers. Coincidence, he thought. Garrett's entire right side was wrought with frozen-over wounds. Craig's hand hovered over his Pokeball, but the Gyarados was still willing to fight, and his Hyper Beams were sorely needed to win the battle.

No, this was no battle.

It was a struggle. Never had he imagined a Pokemon could be this powerful, let alone that he would see one, yet here he was. The constant, high-frequency glitching from Regice didn't stop from their constant barrage of attacks. Instead, it picked up and filled his head with thoughts of surrender.

Fear.

He feared how comforting cold could be.

Roxie, who had been standing with the group, looked anxiously at him, but he asked her to keep hitting from a distance. She growled and eyed the mega-ring around his neck.

Not yet.

—

He spends the entire month of June with Sarah Newman.

Most of it is filled with banter that she always wins, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. His parents are annoying and tease him about it. After all, it's common for young trainers to start dating with other trainers they meet on the road, but this isn't like that. Most of their conversations are filled by talking about every trainer under the sun. For the first time, Craig feels like someone can keep up with his knowledge of obscure battles that took place over thirty years ago or personalities in other regions. When he talks to Sarah, he feels like he's talking to someone who sees beyond her own nose, beyond her comfort zone, and that's refreshing.

Still, June came to an end, and as it turned out, she knew what she was talking about— barely. Frankie Hubbard made it to the finals that year, battling Aiden Scott, but lost in a nail-biting 6-5. Craig was a man of his word, and so he sent her the ten-thousand pokedollars, which would have been a huge sum had his parents not given him money for his birthday. When she gets the money, she grins and says she wouldn't have had the cash to pay him if he'd won the bet.

He's learned a lot about her. One, she's never known her real parents and been raised along with six other foster siblings in Jubilife. She was the oldest, and the only one who wanted to be a trainer. Two, she could read people really well, to the point that it freaked him out sometimes. Three, she'd had her Skrelp for over a year already, having found her in Jubilife's sewers when she'd been out to save her little brother who'd been there due to a dare from his 'friends' from school.

That means that they're way more in sync than he'd been with his own Pokemon at the start of his journey, and hell, they were more in sync than he was with them even now. They'd practiced battling at the Conference in one of the public arenas and while she never won, she learned with each loss and got closer and closer to a win every time.

Ordinarily, he would have pushed her away. He did not.

It was until September, at the start of the Circuit, that they met again. He'd gone to Jubilife early to meet her a few days before the Circuit started again. A one-on-one between her Skrelp and his Bagon.

He loses.

Craig keeps up the smile. He congratulates her and says she'd come far. At first, he thinks nothing of it. He knows she's progressing faster than he is. He works hard, but she works just as much and sees things in a fight that he would never think of. The Circuit begins in earnest. He wins against Roark on his second try and Byron on his first while she wins against both on her second try, and this time, he crosses Eterna Forest with Sarah after much convincing on her part and does so without incident. He doesn't know if they'll still travel together beyond that. He kind of wants to ask her, but he fears rejection when he usually never does.

So he waits and hopes she asks him. They spend their time in Eterna together, but she beats the Gym on her second try while he's still stuck because he still mainly relies on Roxie for strength, whereas Sarah's caught a Ducklett that's as good as her Skrelp, and the synergy the three of them have on the field is incredible. She wins in a two-against-three without breaking a sweat the second time. He wants to ask her to stay, but he knows she wouldn't. She's far too driven for that.

And so, she leaves.

It takes him four tries to beat the Gym. He makes it through Coronet and catches a Hippopotas on the way to Mount Coronet, calling her Ippie. This time, he does it right. He knows he wants a Hippowdon for his team, and he spends a few days tracking a group off-route. She's the most curious of the herd, and he has to spend a week convincing her mother— the leader of the herd and the biggest Hippowdon— to let her come with him. He promises to bring her back every summer, and she allows her to leave with him to see the world.

When he crosses Coronet, he sees the hurt and the danger. An idea forms in his head of Rangers possibly giving lessons and guiding trainers before they're allowed to walk through the caves or Eterna Forest. He imagines Lauren in nine years walking the same path, and his fingers shake. He finds it awful that Sinnoh allows so many to die every year, and no one cares. There are small groups advocating for more security measures, few protests each year, but most people don't want to rock the boat, especially when Indigo to the south produces so many good trainers and have the most 'Champion-level' trainers of any country.

He needs to read up on politics.

He's doing this because he loves battling despite it all, but he also wants to be the Champion… one day. He thinks Cynthia is a step in the right direction compared to Radetic, but believes she should have copied the Unovan model on trainer safety, not just their government. Granted, they can be a little harsh on wild Pokemon, but there has to be a way to balance it and make everyone happy, right? He spends the day on the other side of the mountain looking at statistics for trainer deaths and injuries which are horribly difficult to find. From what he knows, Cynthia declassified them, unlike their neighbors down south, but it looks like the government is making it as difficult to get the data as possible.

There had been one hundred and seventy-six dead trainers during his first year, most of them being fifteen or sixteen-year-olds, and that wasn't counting the injuries or their dead Pokemon.

He tries to think of the girl from last year.

He can't remember her. He doesn't want to.

He reaches Hearthome and figures out what Pokemon Center Sarah's staying at. She's already beaten Fantina, again on her second try, and from the video he watched, she's caught a Basculin. Skrelp, Ducklett, Basculin— Craig wonders if she's going to be a water type specialist. The last time he asked, she said she was just going with the flow of things.

It takes two hours and thirty-three minutes for her to get to the lobby.

"Hey Sarah, funny seeing you here!" he says with a bright smile. "I just arrived actually, and I got myself a room. How about a fight? 3v3?"

She smiles at him. "You're on."

He loses.

Roxie works well with him, now. Garrett still can't fight, but he watches. Paige is an Eelektrik now, and she's supposed to counter her entire team. It doesn't matter. Sarah's Pokemon use little trails of water to divert electricity away from themselves before it can hit and she wipes the floor with her.

The gap is wider now than before.

…how?

"Good fight," she tells him. He clenches a fist. It wasn't a good fight at all. "Nice catch on that Hippopotas. Too bad Skrelp kind of screwed with her, but she has potential."

"Thanks…"

"I'd give you advice, but I know you wouldn't want it." Her hazel eyes look into his, and he can't maintain eye contact. "Good luck with Fantina, Craig."

A pattern forms.

He always gets to the next city just as she's about to leave it, asks for a battle, and gets wiped.

Solaceon. "Sarah, how about a fight? I wanna see where I currently stand."

"Sure thing."

He loses.

Veilstone. "I've come up with a strategy to win this time, I swear. It'll catch you off-guard."

"If you want to surprise me, don't tell me you have a new strategy to win, Craig."

"But you won't know what it is! It'll make you nervous."

"Let's just get to the arena."

She figures him out instantly and tells him that he needed to work on his poker face if he didn't want to be read like a book.

He loses.

Sunyshore. "Wait! Before you go, please give me a fight. I have a new Pokemon—"

Her hair flickers in the sun. "Munchlax. I saw. Sure, let's go."

"Okay, well I know about you too—" he sputters. "I know you have a Mantyke!"

She has something else, too. An amorphous pink blob that turned into her Dragalge and makes use of the poisonous algae she'd left in the field after fainting. He wants to scream. To ask her where the hell she got herself a Ditto. Instead, he stays quiet, his shoulders slump, and he congratulates her with a smile.

He loses.

He doesn't go past his fifth badge that year. Roxie evolves into a Shelgon, stops listening to him again and gets it in her head that she can fly in battle if she tries hard enough. Garrett still can't fight, Caleb the Munchlax is too weak since he's a recent capture, and Paige and Ippie aren't enough to beat the old, grizzled Gym Leader on their own. Sarah goes up to her seventh, winning against every Gym on her second try, and she has no time to test herself against the eighth in Snowpoint before the Conference starts.

Craig feels empty.

—

Craig felt numb. He'd started out terrified, but hoping. Hoping that this would be a winnable fight. It felt like an entire day had passed, but he knew that couldn't be the case, or all of their Pokemon would have collapsed from exhaustion. He'd been forced to release Caleb, his Snorlax, even if the normal type was terrible at fighting at a distance and his elemental attacks always dissipated into nothing before hitting Regice, so he was forced to support Hippowdon with Earthquake. The field was a mess of ice continuously broken up by Hippowdon and magma that cooled within a few seconds every time it was released.

Regice looked the exact same. Pristine with seven brightly lit eyes, though one was flickering, and moving just as fast as it usually did. That was normal, according to Flint, but it was difficult not to get demoralized. It hurt for Craig to keep his eyes open for too long, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to move his fingers and toes, yet the promise of comfort never left him.

Garrett finally fell, going limp against the ice and magma below him, and Craig recalled the Gyarados with haste. They were lucky Regice never locked in on a single opponent, or they would have lost far more Pokemon than just Flint's Drifblim and Aaron's Dustox. Regice seemed to move faster with time instead of slower, too, and it started mixing in electric attacks more powerful than Volkner's strongest Zap Cannon into its rotation of attacks, somehow mixing it into the concept of Winter.

It had to be now.

Craig clasped the necklace around his neck.

A surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins. His heart pounded against his ribcage, a symphony of excitement and anticipation and pain playing through his every nerve. A glow overtook Roxie, and her wings melded into a bloody crescent moon while her front legs atrophied.

She took flight in an instant, shaking the world below her.

Craig felt the cold wrapping around her wings, he saw through her eyes and could imagine the ice seeping past his— past her scales. He felt her pain as he felt her determination to see them through this. A turquoise light surged around the Mega Salamence, and a Hurricane spontaneously appeared around her. It was a protective bubble; the winds were powerful enough to throw back most of Regice's hail. The dragon shone through the dusty, icy winds and dove toward Regice—

A shockwave of sound hit Orbeetle's barrier, and Roxie slammed into Regice faster than Craig could see. The Legend reeled backward, and Roxie's entire body was frozen over by the time she swung back toward safety. With how fast she was, she was already far enough for it not to be lethal, her draconic aura having protected her from instant death. Draconic Surge was her strongest attack but also her strongest defense, and they'd stolen this right from Cynthia's Garchomp. She could simply refuse to fall.

She landed on the ground next to the little warmth Flint's Pokemon could give her and glowed slightly with Roost. Craig wiped the cold sweat off his forehead but only found trails of frost.

Then, she was off again. Here she was, the only Pokemon on the field capable of approaching Regice without immediately dying despite having two Elite Four members by his side, standing as his peers.

Could his old self ever imagine such a thing?

—

He doesn't go to the Conference that year. Instead, he spends all of summer working on his Pokemon and training. A Munchlax is expensive, and he has to rely on odd jobs during the summer to keep Caleb fed, since he doesn't want to rely on his parents for everything. He doesn't talk to Sarah much any longer. She's found herself a few sponsors and has new friends to hang out with, and he knows through online sleuthing that she's starting the Circuit in Snowpoint this year instead of Jubilife.

He tries to forget her, but he can't. Even as his career finally turns around and he starts seeing success, as Ippie evolves into a Hippowdon, Caleb into a Snorlax and Garrett a Gyarados, even as Paige becomes the Eelektross he's always wanted, he watches every single one of her battles to the point of unhealthy obsession. She loses once against the Snowpoint Gym Leader, and then sweeps across the eight Gyms in no time, making sure to save Fantina for last so she could see 'what she was made of.' She completes her team earlier in the year by catching a Sneasel and somehow becomes one of the few trainers in the world to own a Relicanth, who only live within the depths of the ocean floor and were thought to be extinct until they were found again near Hoenn thirty-four years back. He wants to message her and ask her how— how she does all of this so effortlessly, but he can't.

It's difficult to reconcile how talented she is. She fights in such unique ways he literally can't fathom until he looks at the footage, and yet she makes it work. That flexibility in her team is why she's gotten the reputation of never, ever losing twice to an opponent of equal strength.

Craig completes his team as well, deciding that he needs a sixth if he's going to be serious about competing. He has a few contacts within the Hunters from his father and manages to snag himself a Cyndaquil he calls Owen. He finally manages to work with Roxie again and gets seven badges that year, but tragically fails to get Snowpoint's badge for his eighth, even when Roxie evolved into Salamence mid-battle. The Gym Leader, Abenanka walks up to him with her granddaughter Candice who's three years older than Lauren and tells him that his problem is that while he's average to good at everything, there's nothing he excels at, and it shatters everything he is.

He isn't getting into the Conference.

He knows he's no longer her rival. He hasn't been that for a while, now.

Craig doesn't want to go to see her fight in the tournament, and he feels terrible about it. He decides to spend the month of June at home despite his father warning him about the wasted opportunity. He ignores the constant messages from his countless friends and acquaintances pitying him for barely failing to get his eighth badge. Lauren's in the yard playing with Ippie, Roxie and Owen. Craig is good enough now that he managed to get him fully evolved within the year and before the fight with Abenanka.

He watches his sister for a bit through the window. She's given up on her photography hobby and puts everything into drawing, these days. She's eight, now, and sometimes she asks Craig to lend her his Pokemon so she can train her battle-sense with them, but most of what she ends up doing destroys arenas and annoys the employees and Pokemon whose job it is to fix it. Other times, she just straight up has battles in her own head, like blindfolded chess, and she gets annoyed when he doesn't play along.

Craig smiles. It's irrational, given what he thinks about Sarah, but he's happy his little sister's going places.

His grin falters when he sees Sarah land into his backyard on top of her Swanna. She knows Lauren well enough, but his sister still glares at her, which she ignores, and she dips her head to Ippie, Roxie and Owen, the latter of which she'd never met before. Sarah despises young kids other than her siblings and finds them too annoying to be around, so she just walks straight into his home. They live in a nice neighborhood, and the backdoor isn't locked. His parents are thankfully at work, but he rushes to lock the door to his bedroom while he hears her walk up the stairs.

The door bangs. He stays quiet in the corner of his room like a terrified little child. It bangs again.

"I know you're in here."

Her flat voice makes him happy against his will, yet he says nothing. Craig sees red light beneath the crack of his door, and pink sludge crawls beneath it. He screams as Ditto turns into another Sarah and unlocks his own door, letting his old friend into his bedroom. Her white hair is longer, now, but is tied into a high ponytail, and she's dressed so… well. Craig shrinks and suddenly feels like a slob. Has he showered today? Has he even opened the window? Ah, shit.

"Craig." She crosses her arms, and her Ditto mimics her. "How long were you going to hide from me?"

He musters a weak response and runs a nervous hand through his greasy hair. "What do you mean?"

"Stop with the games." She taps a finger against her elbow, and Craig knows that means she's really fucking mad. Every one of her movements is followed by her Ditto's. "We haven't talked this entire year beyond a few texts, let alone battled, so what the hell is wrong with you?"

He flinches at the loudness of her voice. "Nothing."

"What? It can't be nothing, it's— there has to be a reason!"

For someone who knows how to read people, Craig is surprised at her dumbfoundedness. He thinks it's a trick at first, but he knows despite everything, she wouldn't do that.

"Why would you even want to battle me? I— I can't catch up to you, Sarah. No matter what I do, you're always out of reach, so what's the point?"

She stays quiet for a long while, and realization slowly reaches her eyes. "You're so fucking stupid."

"Huh?!"

"You're stupid! A fucking moron!" she screams.

He shoots up from his bed, not caring that he's only wearing shorts. "You wouldn't fucking get it, Sarah, because you're too good at everything you do!" His voice is raw. He's letting out everything he's been letting build up the past two years. "I worked every fucking day of my life to do this, and yet I can't! I just can't! I'm not good at anything, Sarah, I'm just a fucking jack-of-all-trades who doesn't even know what his battling style is and I keep letting my team down!"

"So?"

Craig scoffs. He's crying, he thinks, and so is she. "So?!"

"You aren't working right now. You're lying down and accepting defeat."

"Yeah, well, it's hard to keep moving when the world keeps throwing signs at you that nothing you're doing will be worth it in the end." He smiles bitterly at that.

Her stoic visage falls, and he wants to apologize. He doesn't. "What happened to you, Craig?"

"You wouldn't get it." He sits on his bed and lies down, turning away from her. "Just go have fun with your other Conference-going friends. Friggin' Sal, Lawson and Kayden, or whatever their names are."

"Craig, you have seven badges in your third year, it's—"

"I don't want to be slightly better than average!" he lashes out. "I want to be the best. I want to be the Champion, but I can't. And it's not like I was your rival anyway. 'Rival' implies competition, and there was never any of that after you started the Circuit."

"Why do you think I was always there when you made it to a city, Craig?" she asks. "I was always waiting for you to get there. Waiting for us to fight, because I enjoyed it. Because it was fun to see how we were both progressing." His eyes widen. That potentially means that she missed her shot at the eighth badge in her first year because she'd spent too long waiting for him to get to the city she was in. "You're not average at everything, Craig, you're good at everything, and that means you just have a slower growth curve than me because you work on everything at once. I was… I've…" Another beat of silence, and a sob. "I'm sorry you never enjoyed being my friend."

By the time he turns, the door's already been closed and Ditto's gone with her. He curses himself and runs after her, catching a glimpse of her in the yard. In the time they'd known each other, he had never seen her cry until now.

"Sarah!"

She's already on her Swanna. Craig looks to Roxie, then to Lauren, then to Roxie again. She's eight, and Owen and Ippie will take care of her.

"Watch her!" He yells. Then he jumps on Roxie's back and points toward the Swanna in the sky. "Follow Saraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooshitohshitohshit—"

He regrets his choice almost immediately. One, he doesn't have his license on him, two, he's riding his Salamence shirtless and in shorts, without a saddle. He clings to her neck for dear life as the warm ocean winds brush past his skin. Roxie's faster than Swanna and easily keeps up with her, but having a conversation while moving in the sky without an empath psychic to relay things is impossible, and Sarah has always called psychic types too boring to use.

So he follows her.

And follows her.

Until she decides to land in front of her apartment complex in Jubilife. Craig knows she plans to hide with her siblings and her foster parents, and while he desperately wants to talk to her, he doesn't want to make anyone uncomfortable or create a scene, especially in this getup.

He sighs and has Roxie turn back home— slower this time. On the way back home, he gets stopped by a Ranger and gets nearly all of his points docked off his flying license, but luckily he'd already been on top of Canalave by then and he can just walk back home, even if Roxie has to fly ahead of him.

Shirtless and in boxer shorts.

He reassures Lauren when he gets home, and sends a long-winded text to Sarah's phone explaining that he'd worded himself terribly and that it wasn't her fault he was feeling this way. He apologizes to her for what feels ten times in the same message, and says that they can still be friends. That he'll find a way to still buy a ticket to the Conference and that he'll cheer her on.

She reads it, but doesn't answer. He can't go to sleep that night.

—

Had he ever been this exhausted?

Regice gathered chunks of ice together and dissolved them into mist that blanketed the cave in a thick fog, and all of their flying types— Beautifly, Vespiquen, Salamence, attempted to blow it away with wind, but one couldn't just blow away Winter. They couldn't even see its eyes through the mist, but Craig had noticed a few of its seven had turned off. Flint had told them that was the way to measure how close they were to victory before they'd gone into Coronet. Honey poured out of Vespiquen and surged forward into the mist, and the boy waited a few seconds before he yelled and pointed to their lefts.

"There!"

Flint's Rapidash sprung to action, instantly blurring next to them and into the mist. Craig saw a dim glow within that grew to absurd lengths— its horn had been doused in plasma, but even that light had been swallowed by the mist. Vespiquen could track Pokemon in the mist, and Aaron could seemingly understand her perfectly, because he warned Flint and told him to recall his Ninetales with its exact position, and he was forced to release his Lopunny to keep up the pressure, though it would be far worse in this fight than Ninetales could ever be. Still, it was fresh, and that was something.

Craig heard the plasma blade instead of seeing it. A low, ominous hum filled the air, resembling the distant rumble of thunder on the horizon. The sound wasn't loud, but it carried weight, and it wooshed as it slashed into Regice. Magmortar and Typhlosion pooled their efforts and brought down an entire ceiling worth's of magma down where the impact had just been, and while Roxie couldn't continue her onslaught due to the mist, her Fire Blasts and Hyper Beams were even more powerful than Garrett's in this form. There'd been three eyes left out of seven. They were more than halfway there, but every time they found a new tempo and something that worked, it only took Regice up to ten minutes to adapt to their tactics and counter them almost perfectly. It was like a self-learning algorithm.

Another screech from Vespiquen, and they heard something shatter nearby. Ice formed around Orbeetle's barrier itself, encasing it in a thick layer of flower-like frost, and Flint's fire types who remained could only slow its growth, and before it could shatter, Dot encased them in a tighter layer of shields, and tighter again, and again.

Flint brought up a finger under his nose. Even after this long and this much cold, he looked nowhere as tired as Aaron or Craig were. "Hit 'em with a Mirror Coat. Craig, have your fancy beetle layer a barrier close to her skin beneath it."

That would have been an impossible ask for anyone not called Lucian or Craig.

Lopunny shimmered once, then twice, and stood at the edge of the current barrier which was around thirty five feet in all directions. It ignored the licks of frost clinging to its arms, legs and ears and allowed the shield to shatter, leaving them out of the next pre-built layer. Ice overtook them immediately, and she glowered as bright as a star with flames pouring out of her shining coat.

A pure, concentrated beam of plasma exploded out of her chest. She'd known where to aim thanks to Vespiquen's constant communication, and the mist thinned once the pillar of energy overtook Regice and Roxie used that as an opportunity to swoop down and hit the ice type with another Draconic Surge just as fast as the previous Arceus knew how many. A Zap Cannon from Eelektross, Fire Blasts from Flint's fire types, constant Bug Buzzes from Aaron's Pokemon, focused entirely on Regice, and another eye went dark.

The tide was turning.

—

Craig manages to snag a ticket for the Conference from a reseller at five times the price, and he gets to go that summer. He tries to act the same as usual with his friends and tries to meet more people like he always does. One of them— a regular at the Conference and a Poketch sponsee— likes him so much that he tells him he'll hook him up with the company to see if they can get him sponsored next year, and he almost can't believe it. This could be what finally starts getting him enough money to not have to spend all of his income on feeding his team full of giants, and some months he even has to ask his parents for a little extra despite his pride telling him otherwise.

Still.

Sarah doesn't want anything to do with him. He's tried to get her alone a few times, but she's surrounded by her friends and by the third attempt he nearly gets into a fight with one of the boys, and he realizes that their friendship might be broken forever. He's eighteen, now, so every night he gets drunk alone in his hotel room and wonders where it all went wrong. He drunk dials her a few times and always apologizes the next day when he reads what he's sent, but one night he sends her 'I love you,' and it's too much.

He blocks her number for his own good when she doesn't answer again. It's fine. He's fine.

When he watches Sarah fight in the group stages, something is clearly wrong with her. She doesn't approach her battles like she usually does and almost fights like she's on autopilot. She has none of the flair, none of the spontaneity, none of the uniqueness that made her so brutal to fight, and she loses every single match, failing to get out of the group stages. He knows her friends are here to support her, and he leaves early. He's not interested in the outcome of the tournament this year now that she's out.

The Circuit begins again, and he gets sponsored not only by Poketch, but by multiple other companies as well. He decides that if he's going to do this thing, he has to take it seriously and starts spending multiple long stretches in Mount Coronet to train despite how terrified he is. He easily gathers eight badges, making it a point to beat Snowpoint's for his eighth, and he proudly declares to Abenanka that he's going to be the best at everything to prove her wrong at the start of the fight. The clip goes viral online, combined with his networking efforts for the past four years and his Poketch sponsor, he's suddenly one of the most famous trainers in the country and it's… a lot.

New responsibilities, being somewhat of a role model, having every word he says be taken as Poketch's. There's a big learning curve, but Craig is used to getting beaten up and remaining standing, so despite the slip-ups, he makes it work. He travels all over the region when he has time, going through photoshoots, video shoots, interviews, tournaments, more networking, the ideas for merch, and with all of that combined with his training, he suddenly has very little free time to do anything else. He tries to date another Poketch sponsee for a while— a girl named Abigail. It crashes and burns within six months because he wants to keep it a secret and she doesn't.

He gets to the Conference that year, and barely— barely makes it out of the group stages on his first attempt, and honestly, it's mostly luck.

His first, true 6v6?

Craig Goodwill v Sarah Newman.

It's as if the world itself is laughing in his face.

The situation is reversed. He can barely put his mind into the fight, while she slaughters him and battles better than she has the entire year. Her Dragalge creates a swamp full of poison, leaving mines laced with draconic energy that his Pokemon can't help but be enthralled by. Her Weavile manipulates chunks of poisoned ice and uses them as an extension of her claws, her Mantine flies overhead with poisoned water clones of herself and bombs his Snorlax with constant exploding chunks of hail, sharpened air, rocks, Bullet Seeds, pressurized water and when he switches to Eelektross, she smiles at him and sends back the Thunders that manage to hit with Mirror Coat. Her Relicanth is an impenetrable wall, and despite the fact that he doesn't float with hydrokinesis like the others, he travels throughout the field riding a constant wave of Muddy Water and smashes his head into Garrett, and her Ditto transforms back into Dragalge, fighting just as well as her ace and starter had.

The final score is 3-6 in her favor. She starts fighting worse as soon as the battle is over and loses two matches later.

The years pass.

Slowly.

Slowly, but surely, they both claw their way up to the Conference each tournament. Lauren grows more distant when she turns twelve, wanting to live outside of his shadow. He thinks she'll grow out of it or that it's just a phase, but it's not. The previous Poketch Trainer Representative retires and Craig takes his place after a nasty corporate civil war that he wins thanks to knowing how people work better than his ex-girlfriend Abigail, and she's driven out of the company.

It's bloody, it's nasty, and he hates it, but it's all just work, by now.

One thing he loves, though, is being a role model for young trainers and kids. He goes to schools and talks about what it takes being a trainer, the perseverance and hard work involved. Craig likes kids. He still thinks it's a travesty that so many of them die each year and he makes it his goal to tell people to always start the Circuit from the east if they can so they don't have to go through Eterna Forest before they're ready. One day, he goes to Lauren's school, and he makes it a tradition to come every year. At some point, Lauren tells him to stop because she hates it, and he agrees even if he's hurt.

With the new salary comes a mega ring and Roxie's Salamencite after an entire year of saving. It takes another six months for him to get used to the exhaustion that swallows him whole every time he uses it, but he understands that he shouldn't rely on it as a crutch in a fight unless he absolutely has to.

The summer before his ninth Circuit, Craig hadn't fought or spoken to Sarah since his fourth. He's been a quarter-finalist two years in a row while she's made it to the semis once. He's nervous. Twenty-five is looming ever closer, and culture dictates that that is when one must stop playing around in the Circuit and enter the real world. He's already had League Scouts who observe every match at the Conference contact him about joining the army, and while he's hesitant, he's not completely against the idea if his dream of becoming Champion falters, so long as he can rise through the ranks from the inside and be potentially chosen as a member of the Elite Four in the future. While he's responding to an email to the Hunter family about getting his little sister a Treecko sometime soon, he sees a Swanna land in his backyard. Lauren's off watching some summer tournament south of the city with Paige acting as her babysitter, Ippie's back at her mom's for the next two weeks, and the rest of the team are in their Pokeballs, so he's alone.

His fingers drum against the desk, and he closes his laptop. He's nervous, but he goes down to meet her, and she doesn't break into his house.

They aren't kids anymore.

"Craig."

She greets him with that same, flat voice she's always had in front of his door. Her white hair was into a bob cut, just like when they'd first met, and he snorts instead of greeting her back because of her bad it looks.

"Sarah. I see your choice of hairdressers still leaves something to be desired."

She raises an eyebrow. "I've been going to Ms. Ken since I've been a kid. It's a tradition, at this point, and I wanted to try short hair again."

"Well, I won't tell you what to do," he says with a shrug. "Want to come in? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Her nose wrinkles. "'To what do I owe the pleasure?' What the hell is that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You talk… different."

"Well, I guess that's called growing up. So?"

She shifts uncomfortably. "It's been a long time. I just wanted to catch up with an old friend, I guess. See what goes on beyond Poketch's cookie-cutter version of you."

"Ah, well, that'll take a while." He gestures her in. "I've got coffee, if you want."

She sighs in relief. "Yes, please."

He smirks. She's always been a coffee addict.

They talk for a while, telling each other about what had happened in their lives the past five years, and Craig wonders why they'd waited so long to do so. Sure, they both needed to mature— especially him, but he was sure that they could have done this a lot earlier than now. She tells him about her adventures on the ocean floor on the back of her Mantine (who could keep her protected from the elements, including the pressure, thanks to its flying typing), and how she met a Pokemon she'd never heard about. She tries to describe it, but she's always been shit at describing things, so it comes out sounding like some kind of blue alien until she draws it on a piece of paper. It's blue and has a weird bulb on its head from which some kind of appendage grows that looks like a long strand of hair. Its eyes are a dark blue and a red gem is lodged into its chest. According to her, around it were thousands of Pokemon living in harmony and it made the world so much more colorful. She tells him about how she caught Relicanth the same way years back, though back then she wasn't able to go that deep and it had been a stroke of good luck, and that her Ditto had been found writhing in a dumpster next to the Game Corner in Veilstone shortly after their battle there. She tells him more and more and he realizes her life has been filled with just as much crazy shit as his has.

Beyond Poketch and being a star, Craig tells her the most about Mount Coronet. About the breadth of life in the mountain that people never saw, and what the different layers look like. He tells her about his multiple run-ins with Pokemon and the multiple close calls he's had, and instead of worrying, she tells him he's lucky he hasn't been scarred, and just like that, he knows they're back to being friends.

They decide to sit on his roof for a bit and watch the sun set after Lauren gets here and gives Sarah the stink eye without saying a word. Craig tries to ask her how the tournament was, but she locks herself in her room and says that she's going to draw, and the metal music she puts on is so loud the walls of the house vibrate.

Well, she is fourteen.

"It was nice catching up," Craig says. He can see the bridge from here, and it's drawn up to allow a ship to pass through the canal; out of the marina and into the ocean. "It's like back in the day."

Sarah nods. "Hmhm."

"Sorry for back then," he adds.

"I'm sorry too. We were kids." She clears her throat. "There's actually another reason I came here. It's about us."

His heart skips a beat. After all this time, really? What the fuck? He tries not to be weird about it. He knows she's dated multiple people by now, and she'd never really felt the same way about him that he had about her, or that if she had, she no longer did so, and that was fine. Really, he was the strange one for holding on to infatuation from when he'd been a teenager.

"This year at the Conference, Craig, I want you to give it your all, and I'll do the same," she declares. "Let's leave the drama behind us and meet in the finals. You and me, battling it out to see who's going to be the strongest trainer. I know we both have what it takes."

"I lost in quarters last time. Finals… it's a big jump."

"Oh, please, the only reason neither of us have been finalists yet at this point is because the current generation of trainers is fucking insane. Could you imagine… what was their names? The two people we bet on when we first met?"

"Frankie Hubbard and Aiden Scott."

She cackles so hard that her legs squirm. "Yes! Them! Arceus, that takes me back— but can you imagine if they were fighting in the Conference this year with all of your freaks in Poketch and the general talent going around?"

"Yeah… no way they make it to the finals," he agrees.

"So push harder, Craig. I know we both have what it takes to get here. You're still… you know, I still consider you my rival. I've never had anyone else."

He can't help but smile at that. "Me too."

"Win or lose, I'm leaving after this year, Craig. Sinnoh's boring, now. It's always the same Gym, always the same people, I need something new. I don't think I'll register to the Circuit wherever I'm going, but I kind of just want to… see the world."

Ah.

That shakes his very foundation. It's difficult to imagine a world without her to chase after, but at the same time, he's happy she won't stay somewhere she isn't happy.

"Okay. Let's have one final fight, you and I," he says with a grin.

"Let's make it happen." She holds out a hand at him. He shakes it.

And so, a promise was made.

"Wanna go train in Victory Road together?" he asks. She agrees.

—

One. Only one eye remained lit from the seven. They were close to winning, but also close to breaking as well. They'd been fighting for so long it all felt like a blur to Craig. Roxie was so tired she had to cancel her mega evolution, and he could barely stand on his own two feet without Flint to keep him upright.

One. They have one Pokemon left each, and both have seen fighting already. Salamence against Dragalge, their two starters and aces, close to the brink. Having recalled Roxie earlier to keep even with her numbers, Craig knows he can't go through the strain of mega-evolution again. He shares a look with Sarah, and they both grin.

Another flurry of attacks, and the last eye flickered between dark and glowing. They were so close to victory that he felt a reinvigorating burst of energy course through his body.

Salamence rushes toward Dragalge, bites into her body and the poison type releases roiling poisonous mist that Craig can taste in his mouth even from behind the barrier. The acid bleeds through Roxie's mouth and makes her teeth and jaw melt, but she blows a point-blank Dragon Pulse at the Dragalge while dragging her as far away as she can from the poisoned swamp below.

Regice raised one of its massive hands and fired off a ray of Winter toward Roxie, and Craig instinctively knew that she was too slow to dodge or outrun it now that she was out of her mega form. He grabbed the dragon type's Pokeball and tried to beam her back, but she was actually still too fast for the tracking beam to hit her. If she slowed, the ice would hit her before he could recall her, and he knew that this ice was different. It was infused with electricity to speed itself up, and he knew Regice was an adaptive fighter who had probably adjusted its tactics to best counter Roxie, who had been a thorn in its side ever since it had mega-evolved.

He called out to Dot and asked her to summon a shield to block the ice. Exhausted from who knew how many hours of defensive multitasking, she nodded.

Dragalge's entire body exhales in pain, but she starts leaking water instead of poison. The liquid surrounds Roxie, and at first Craig thinks it's going to freeze her, but instead, it coats her like a layer of gel. With a defiant eye, Dragalge crinkles and Roxie is pulled downward toward the swamp by the water around her. He's never seen Sarah use this attack before, but he can infer from the way Roxie's Dragon Pulse weakens that it's some variation of Soak.

All he can do is hope. His breath catches in his throat.

All he could do was hope. At least ten panels of light appeared in-between Regice's attack and Roxie while the rest of the Pokemon still remaining standing gave it everything they had. Fire, electricity, Hyper Beams were most of what they were using, but there were also Earthquakes, magma and poison. The beam of Winter shattered the first eight barriers, and then stalled. Craig felt a surge of hope.

The two Pokemon crash into the poisoned swamp, and Craig is exhausted, but praying to every Legendary he knows that he's achieved victory. The two Pokemon had sank below the water, and he can only see bubbles.

Then, they stop, and he sees Dragalge's red crest poke out of the water.

Roxie is nowhere to be seen.

Regice whirred, and Winter bent.

It flew directly toward them, and Aaron screamed at his Beautifly to get back and to use Protect, and it was barely here in time. Dot waved an arm and screeched, and Craig instinctively stepped in front of Aaron—

The tingling and numbness was replaced by a pervasive nothingness. His body seemed like it belonged to someone else, especially his arm. His left arm. His breath puffed out in thick clouds that quickly dissipated in the icy air, and with each exhale, it seemed as if a little more of his warmth and energy left him.

He loses, and the crowd erupts into applause.

He.

Feels.

So.

Crushed.

After all of this, after everything, he still couldn't beat her. What comes next is a blur. He doesn't remember if he smiles or if he just stands there, his mouth agape. The fight had been so close, and knowing it was probably the last one they'd ever have made him want to tear out his hair. His left arm hurts. He doesn't remember why. He doesn't remember where he is, or what is going on.

He was fighting Regice, wasn't he?

He hears voices he can't make out.

He tries to move. All he can muster is a stir.

He tries to open his eyes. The world is blurry, but he sees Aaron shaking him with a horrified look while Flint pulls out something from his bag. They look nearly frozen, too, and are shaking uncontrollably, but at least they're alive. That must have meant Orbeetle and Beautifly's Protect weakened the ice enough before it hit. He sees Dot, Roxie, Ippie, Caleb, Paige and Owen swarm around him, too, and he wants to tell them to be quiet. It's not like he can understand what they're saying beyond the vaguest of ideas, given how out of it he is. Something about a shattered left arm and spreading cold. They remind him of the crowd cheering for his battle against Sarah after he lost. The greatest final the Conference had ever seen, they called it.

Is Regice finished? It must be, given that they aren't all dead and are paying attention to him.

He closes his eyes. It doesn't hurt.

He imagines the Conference this year. This summer.

He imagines winning the finals and holding that giant trophy next to Cynthia and the rest of the Elite Four in the closing ceremony.

He imagines the intense preparations and final stretch of training he has to go through to prepare to win against them.

He imagines beating the Elite Four one by one. He decides to have it in private with only his family being allowed in the stands.

He imagines making them proud.

He imagines his parents and Lauren smiling.

He wants to imagine the rest of it. He really wants to.

But he's so tired, and it's so comfortable. Like his head is on his mother's lap.

The Boy Champion goes to sleep and never wakes up.

—

A/N: I dreaded writing this.

For the past year, I've considered two options. Either Craig dies against Regice and his team survives, or one or a few of his Pokemon do, meaning he's too devastated to fight in the Conference and his chances are ruined. His character was always meant to have a tragic ending, but I couldn't decide which one it was going to be for a long time.

In the end, I decided he dies, which was probably evident with the death flags and then all the flashbacks, but I think giving a character a proper send-off in this situation was better than trying to catch readers off-guard with a death. I was meant to write a Craig Side Story a long time ago, and I could never get it done, so this is kind of it. This is Craig Goodwill. This is who he was and how he grew up. I wanted you to feel like he could have been the main character of his own story, and you learn a little more about Sarah Newman too, for those who remember him mentioning her.

Hm.

I'm sad, I think. I hope what I wrote was worthy of him. It was a bit of an experimental chapter, with the two stories linking together at the end, the more abstract descriptions of the fight, and the different tenses.

Thanks for reading, as always.