CHAPTER 92

I stretched with my legs crossed and let out a satisfied groan. That had taken less time than I expected since I didn’t have to study each Pokemon Candice would use. I had notes splayed out in front of me on my desk, with bullet points that described how Candice fought in each different mood. I leaned back against the table and went over what I had written again.

After scanning each mood Candice showcased before one of her battles, I had filtered all of her moods and placed them in different categories: defensive Candice, offensive Candice (special/physical), stalling Candice, speedy Candice, and wildcard Candice. When she was excited, for example, she almost always used a more offensive, fast-paced team.

Wildcard Candice... ok, I still wasn’t a fan of that name. I scratched it out and replaced it with ‘erratic Candice’ instead.

These were almost all self-explanatory, and there was always a nuance to them, but erratic Candice rarely came out in battles. That was when she threw every ounce of strategy or plan out of the water and just did whatever she wanted with no consistency. Before watching videos of the phenomenon, I would have thought that this way of battling could never work. Every trainer that knew what they were doing had at least a general way of fighting that they honed and perfected throughout the years, and a gym leader was the last person I would have expected to just completely ignore that rule. Alas, Candice didn’t listen to rules. She made her own.

Still, erratic Candice was a rare occurrence. Sometimes, it worked, simply because of how taken off-guard her opponents were, and other times, it failed miserably because… well, having no plan usually came back to bite you in the ass.

I had made general strategies for each scenario, and my Pokemon would have different roles depending on what we ended up facing. Electabuzz was my ace against speedy Candice, because only he would be able to keep up with her fast Pokemon, but also against defensive Candice since he had the firepower to blow past their defenses and dodge their generally slow attacks— I was assuming that most defensive Pokemon were on the slow side here. But against offensive or stalling Candice, he’d be less effective. That’s when my other Pokemon would come in and shine.

Either way, I was done, but it felt inadequate somehow. If I was going into a gym battle, I wanted to know everything, down to every last detail. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the gym battle and was surprised to see that my imagination of the scene was shockingly clear. Unfortunately, even if I could theorize what Pokemon Candice would use by looking up every ice type in existence, I wouldn’t know their moves anyway, so that was a bit of a dud. Maybe if I battled her last, I could see the Pokemon she used, how she fought on a lower level, and extrapolate the information for my own fight. That’d give me three battles to amend the plan I had already come up with for each iteration of Candice, which was one hour and some change… yeah, I could work with that.

“Time to call Cece,” I muttered. “You guys think you can behave if I leave you here?” I said, turning to my Pokemon. My room had been turned into an absolute mess. Electabuzz was throwing pillows at Togetic and Larvitar— the rock type had torn up multiple of them with her sharp horn. Tangela had opened the bathroom door, hoisted himself on the counter, and had been staring at himself in the mirror for the last hour, and Frillish had given up on trying to control everything and was just floating limply in the air with a dejected look.

“Okay, you can’t behave. You’re coming with me,” I sighed. I let them play for another few minutes since I needed to shower and touch up my appearance. I didn’t want to make Cece look bad, especially since we’d be recognized outside. I felt the corner of my lip rise when I saw angel touch his reflection in the mirror. He seemed very perplexed at the fact that it was mimicking his exact movements, and I didn’t want to ruin his fun by revealing that it was just him. His eyes widened when he saw my reflection enter the bathroom, and he tried to move his vines through the mirror to get to me.

After my shower, I made my way to the sink.

“Scoot over, angel,” I said softly as I stared at myself. I washed my face, applied some of the free moisturizer the Centers had, then untangled and brushed my hair. “It’s not much, but it’ll do, I think. I mean, we’re just signing up for a gym battle.”

It wasn’t a date, even though I did have a few plans, just in case.

Plus, Cece wouldn’t care about stuff like how I make her look, I thought to myself. Still, I want to try to not look like a bum.

I felt angel pat my back with a few vines and caressed him back. “Aren’t you the cutest boy ever?” I said. He answered with one of his happy stares and wriggled. “Yeah you are,” I smiled. “It’s Pokeball time, but I might use you later. I was thinking of doing mock battles with your siblings if I have time.”

He nodded as I recalled him, and then I returned my entire team. I’d have to apologize to the Nurses for the state of the room when I left.

“Raising kids is hard,” I sighed as I grabbed my coat. “But fun and fulfilling.”

I dialed Cece’s number, and she answered after a few rings.

“Grace,” she said happily. “I was waiting for your call. Are you ready?”

“Yeah—” I stepped out of the room and saw that she was waiting in the hallway. I had kind of forgotten that all of our rooms were right next to each other. I laughed and hung up. “Let me send a text to Denzel before we leave. Maybe we can meet up at the gym.”

“I’m guessing we’re going to be doing things on the way there?” She asked. “You look stunning, by the way. Well, you always look beautiful, but…”

“Thanks,” I blushed. “And I did have a few ideas, but I didn’t know if you’d be too busy to try them out.”

“Well, I’ve cleared the whole rest of my day for you, my love,” she said. The nickname made me shiver, in a good way.

“My love?” I smiled as we stepped toward the empty lobby. “I like that, it’s romantic.”

“Thank the Legendaries… it took all of my courage to get that out.”

“Well, I’ll think of a nickname for you too,” I told her. “It won’t take long, I’m pretty good with those.”

“Well, good might be an overstatement,” she said sarcastically. I placed a hand on my heart and made a dramatic face.

“Ow, you wound me,” I said. “My Pokemon are perfectly happy with their nicknames, thank you very much.”

We kept teasing each other until we saw the absolute sea of people in front of the Pokemon Center. I drew a sharp breath. Snowpoint was supposed to be a quiet city without that many people, but this was an absolute swarm. Luckily, they hadn’t entered the Center’s lobby, and nothing had stopped them from doing so, so they were at least somewhat respectful. I kept my head down as Cece dragged me through the crowd. Some of them were reporters asking us questions, while most were just curious bystanders who wanted to see the first-year trainers that had survived going through uncharted parts of Mount Coronet on their own.

“May we have a quick interview? We’re a small Snowpoint-based channel, and we’re interested in your time through Mount Coronet. The whole region is!”

“Ms. Pastel, Ms. Obel please, a word for—”

“Don’t call me that name,” Cecilia interrupted with an icy tone. “We won’t be taking any interviews at this time. Feel free to contact us through email.”

I frowned. Sure, she had said she was giving up on the name, and I completely understood and respected that decision, but she hadn’t said anything when Chase had called her Obel during our entire trek up to Snowpoint together. The people understood and seemingly dispersed as soon as we passed through the crowd, but the reporters were a bit insistent, and we had to deny them for five minutes straight, and it didn’t stop them from taking pictures.

“Man, if that’s what we have to deal with in Snowpoint, I can’t imagine Eterna,” I complained. “I feel bad for our friends there.”

“The excitement will die down,” Cece reassured me. “Although we’ll always be famous, especially when we beat Candice.”

“I like the confidence,” I smiled. “I was wondering on asking to turn off the camera feed or not,” I continued, thinking of Lauren. “I honestly think I might, not even because of my anxiety around fame, but because it helps to keep your cards close to your chest.”

“That’s a fine idea,” she replied with a nod. “I personally won’t, and Denzel and Chase won’t for sure. I see you’ve changed your way of thinking about other trainers, though.”

“Yeah, Craig kind of indirectly gave me advice, although he didn’t really want to. I think staying as hidden as possible will actually work out in the long run, although I wouldn’t mind participating in another tournament,” I sighed. “My mind’s all over the place.”

“You have time to think about it.”

We walked together for another few minutes when I pointed at a specific building. “Okay, you see that?” I asked.

“They… rent skis?” Cece squinted.

“Yeah, and there’s a small bunny hill behind the store for people to try ‘em out. I figured it’d be fun since I’ve never skied before.”

Cecilia smirked. “I don’t want to boast, but I happen to be a professional. Clarence would take us to a ski resort during the winters, and I got very good at it.”

Clarence, I noticed. Right, he wasn’t her father anymore.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Is this going to be like when we went bowling, and you’re actually worse than me?” I teased.

“Okay, you’re on now.”

——

“Are you sure we don’t have to pay?” I asked the man behind the counter. “It feels weird doing this for free.”

“Of course, you don’t!” He said with a booming voice. “You kids have brought more publicity and attention to Snowpoint than I’ve seen in decades! People usually see us as a backwater, and trainers only stay around to battle the gym. They never spend any money on supporting local businesses, like that Craig guy! He pisses me off. Treats this place like an Arceus damned speed bump. But I see that you’re trying, so I’m giving this to you free of charge. Just make sure to visit other places, and we’ll be even!”

Right, Craig is here too, I thought. Maybe we could go see his gym battle if he still hasn’t battled Candice. I was definitely interested in seeing what a high-level gym battle looked like from up close.

“Well, thanks a lot,” I said.

He nodded and handed me ski boots. I couldn’t understand how I was even to put these on, and I was too embarrassed to ask the store owner, who had already explained once and just said he’d rent me skis for free. Bothering him again would feel asinine. I hadn’t even thought that skiers used special boots in the first place, but it made sense the more I thought about it. How were people’s feet supposed to stick on the skis otherwise?

“Need some help?” Cece smirked at me.

“Your competitive mood comes out at the worst times,” I chuckled. “Sure.”

Cece kneeled at my feet, carefully lifted my jeans, and showed me how to put on the skiing shoes and how to put them on skis.

“The shopowner already showed you how to do it,” she smiled. “You’re such an airhead.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled.

“And… done. Let’s get skiing!”

——

“Remember what I explained, Grace!” Cece exclaimed at me. “Parallel to speed up, pizza slice to break!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” I yelled. “How are you even going backwards?”

“I told you I was good.”

Skiing was way harder than it looked.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t since there were literal five-year-olds racing past me like they had been doing this for ten years, humiliating me further. One of them called me slow as she passed me, giggling and snaking across the bunny hill. That caught me off guard, and my legs started to wobble as I quickly lost control of my speed and bumped into Cecilia, causing both of us to fall. One of my skis detached from my boot and flew off down the hill.

“Holy shit,” I swore. “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

“No need to panic,” Cece said. “I’m fine.”

I stared at her for a few seconds, realizing that I was on top of her. It’d be so easy to just lean in. I averted my gaze and helped her up.

“Sorry,” I apologized again.

“It’s alright, I wanted to kiss you too.”

Our relationship was kind of being kept on the down low for now. It wasn’t because Cece was uncomfortable with her sexuality being public or anything like that. In fact, I’d say she had adapted incredibly quickly to it. It wasn’t because she was scared of her father or his reaction, or because we cared about the further publicity it would bring onto us either. We wouldn’t be the first trainer couple to have formed during the Circuit. It was bound to happen if you let a bunch of teenagers and young people travel on their own.

No, it was because we still hadn’t told our friends in Eterna yet.

We weren’t worried about Pauline and Emilia, they definitely wouldn’t care at all, and they’d be happy for us. Justin probably would say he didn’t understand, but he’d be for it as well, but Louis…

Louis had been remarkably strong when Cece had revealed that she didn’t love him in that letter. Stronger than I thought he would have been, which I supposed was proof that he really did love her. We both feared that he’d take it really badly. Of course, we knew that hiding our relationship forever wouldn’t be feasible, but Cecilia wanted to wait until she could tell him in person, and I agreed. He deserved that amount of respect.

“Let’s get back up top,” Cece said. “Surely you can’t be that bad.”

“I’ll show you,” I said, feeling a surge of confidence.

——

“Arceus, you are the worst skier I’ve ever seen, bar none!” Cece laughed as we exited the store. “Everyone can at least get through a bunny hill after an hour or two.”

“You don’t understand,” I sighed. “I keep getting crisscrossed, and I forget how to move my legs. Then I’m going too fast, so I just fall.”

“How is that even possible?” She laughed heartily. “How do you forget how to use your legs?”

“Well, ask my legs! I don’t know.”

“I don’t even think they’d know the answer.”

“Rub it in more, won’t you?”

“You rubbed it in when we went bowling.”

“That was different… kind of,” I muttered.

We stopped for lunch in a local restaurant that specialized in seafood— animal seafood. Due to the inhospitable nature of Snowpoint, people had specialized in aquaculture to keep the population fed, and that tradition stuck even now that they could get all of their food delivered from down south. Cece forced me to taste crab for the first time, and it was actually pretty decent. Plus, we split the bill fifty-fifty, which made me incredibly happy. She didn’t even ask to pay for me.

Nothing could beat good old fast food, though.

We went on a detour so that I could buy poffins for Frillish, but I ended up buying some for the entire team. Larvitar was going to love these. Cece got some for her team too, which was new. She had acted all embarrassed about it too, which was the cutest thing. After that, we bought new, weather-appropriate coats since ours weren’t really equipped to deal with Snowpoint’s winters.

Finally, we arrived at the Snowpoint city gym, which wasn’t hard to find, since it loomed menacingly above every building in the city. Stepping inside, well, it was empty aside for Denzel and Chase, who were waiting at the counter.

“You’re here already?” I asked Denzel after greeting him.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he grumbled.

“Oh shit, right!” I facepalmed. “I’m sorry, we got kind of sidetracked.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it, just warn me next time you go on a spontaneous date, alright?”

I shushed him, but agreed.

“Ah, right, you guys are hiding,” Chase rolled his eyes. “Williams here was telling me about how many interviews he was going to partake in.”

“I’ve gotta seize the moment,” he shrugged. “I spent all morning answering forum posts while my team trained, too.”

“Waste of time, if you ask me,” Chase said.

“What? I thought you’d be the type to do that kind of stuff. Didn’t you want to be known as the strongest first year or whatever?” I asked.

“I am the strongest, period,” he boasted. “But I’m sticking it up to for-profit media. I’m only answering people who put my name in their headlines, so as you can guess, I’m pretty free.”

“Where’s the receptionist, anyway?” Cecilia asked.

“He said that he was coming,” Denzel said. “Snowpoint doesn’t employ a lot of gym trainers this time of year— apparently, they have some kind of part-time system where a lot of the employees here only work in April and May, when Snowpoint gets the busiest.”

“Makes sense,” Cece nodded. “It wouldn’t be sound for the League to pay employees that don’t do any work.”

“Wrong. I stand with workers,” Chase said. “They deserve a win after getting fucked so many times throughout history, and you should do the same. So what if they get a little extra? The League can afford it.”

“Okay, don’t start preaching,” I sighed, rolling my eyes as I leaned against the counter. “Anyway, I actually wanted to ask you something, Chase. When we all finish up with Candice here, what are you planning on doing?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I was thinking of going through Celestic and Solaceon to get to Hearthome.”

I felt my heart tug. “So you’re going to leave? Just like that? Why don’t you come with us, we can travel together with the rest of our group—”

“Nah,” Chase shook his head. “I’m more of a solitary trainer in the first place. I wouldn’t fit in with your pals.”

“You’re really not as bad as they think you are,” I pleaded. “They can learn to know you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a slight smile. “It was nice traveling with you guys and all, but I’ve got to get back to doing my thing.”

I bit the inside of my mouth and stared at the ground dejectedly. I really thought of him as my friend. A good friend, in fact. A month ago, I would have found the idea laughable, but now, it actually hurt to know he was leaving.

“Hey, no need to look so down for an asshole like me,” he said with a slight shrug. “I appreciate you for asking, though… heh, look at that, your cheery attitude keeps rubbing off on me.”

“You have mellowed out since meeting us,” Cece noticed.

“And it’s not like we’re never going to see each other again!” Denzel quickly added. “He said he was going to Hearthome, and we’re going there too. Even if we’re taking different paths, we’ll probably come across each other in the city, and then we can hang out.”

“Fine,” I said before staring fiercely at Chase. “But your ass is getting back in our group chat.”

“I told you I didn’t like—”

“I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“Sheesh,” he exhaled after a few seconds. “Fine. Don’t expect me to type much, though.”

“I want an update every time you get to a city or an outpost,” I ordered. “To make sure you haven’t gotten yourself killed.”

“What if I forget—”

“You won’t forget.”

“Come on, Grace,” Cece smiled. “You’re acting like we’re separating already. We haven’t even beaten Candice yet.”

“Eh, I’d say it’s a given that we’ll beat her,” Chase confidently said. “After everything we’ve done to get here? This fight is going to be easy.”

“Don’t get too overconfident,” I warned. “The last thing you want is to get stuck here for two more weeks. Traveling back down south is going to put us seriously behind in our amount of badges.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Ah, he’s finally back,” Chase nodded toward the receptionist that walked back behind the counter.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said with a small apologetic bow. “I know you’re not going to be pleased with this, but Candice is going to be busy today and tomorrow, so the closest we can register you for a battle is the day after that. Her Wednesday mornings are always busy, but this is somewhat of an exceptional circumstance.”

“Ah,” I said, somewhat disappointed. Well, at least that gave me more time to train and iron out a few deficiencies.

“Ugh,” Chase groaned. “Well, it looks like we’ll be together a bit longer, Pastel.”