The protests were dying down. Peering down from his office on the top floor, Steven could only see a dozen or so picketers scattered around the plaza—nothing like the throngs that had been there a few weeks back. It was as he'd expected. The people of Hoenn were upset, and he understood that—change could be a frightening thing. But now weeks had gone by without Devon sending jackbooted thugs into Ever Grande City, or instituting Steven as some kind of uber-Champion, or doing any of the other ridiculous things they'd been sure would happen, and their rage was turning to bored exhaustion. Lacking new provocation, people were growing content to leave the streets and wait for Devon's next scandal in the comfort of their own homes.

Speaking of… Steven checked his watch. Almost time. He turned from the window and sat down in a plush executive chair behind a gleaming mahogany desk. Both were holdovers from when this had been his father's office—Steven, personally, didn't care much for this form of luxury, and found them gaudy and off-putting. But they were functional, and it would be wasteful to throw them out and replace them just to suit his own tastes. He pulled a sleek silver laptop towards him, opened up the lid, and sent out a call. Moments later, Jin's face appeared on the screen.

"Prompt as ever. Do you count down the seconds until it's time to bother me with these meetings?" Jin was dressed as sharply as ever, but without the public eye on him, his polish was lacking. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and he reclined lazily in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. "Can we make this one quick? I've got a whole horde of children waiting to battle once my break is up."

"Just checking in, Jin. Due diligence, and all that." Jin scoffed, kicking off from his desk so that his chair spun in a slow circle. "How are things on your end? Any new heat from the public?"

"I'm still harassed at all hours when I dare to set foot outside the gym, but nobody's tried to lay hands on me since that incident with the Loudred. I'm practically starting to feel at home." Jin smiled humorlessly. "Would be easier if the police in this region were better at keeping order. In Kanto, half of these people would be locked up for disturbing the peace."

Steven sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Right. I hope you're keeping that opinion to yourself, because it's not going to win you friends any faster."

"I'm not an idiot, Steven."

Jin was… Objectively, he wasn't the best person for this job. He was diligent, and clever, and good at what he did, but his misanthropic streak and taste for authoritarianism ran counter to the message Steven was trying to send. He wasn't trying to take over Hoenn, despite what the tabloids said, and despite Jin helpfully pointing out that it would make their jobs easier if he did. He was trying to protect Hoenn, imperfect government and all. But while Jin might not have been the best choice for the public face of this operation, he was the only choice Steven had had. Wallace, after all, was still in Ever Grande City, and wasn't coming back any time soon.

"Well, since your time is clearly short, let's talk business." At this, Jin straightened up. Typical. "How's your investigation going? Any new information?"

"Nothing since my last email." Jin reached off-frame and pulled a stack of papers in front of him. "Wattson's still unresponsive, as expected. Dock and Stern have lawyered up, and Raizoh's pretending to be unreachable. I'm still combing through the project records, but they're a mess—I can see why this company went under." He lifted the top sheet of paper from the pile and held it towards the camera. "This, for example, is a list of building permits, but half the files it references are nowhere to be found. Somebody was either sloppy about archiving their documents, or sloppy about destroying them."

"What about reaching out to the lower-ranking engineers and managers? Have you had any success with that?"

"Very little. Most of them made themselves scarce when the probe into Greater Mauville Holdings began, and when we entered the picture, some fled the country altogether. Those who didn't have been smart enough not to answer our calls. We're trying other methods of persuasion, but I imagine you don't want to hear about those." He paused, then, and frowned. "I suppose there has been one development. It's a small thing, but our salvage groups have reached the twenty-third floor, and they've reported some new interference on electronic communications. Seems like an electromagnetic field, though it's too faint to properly analyze just yet. It'll just as likely turn out to be nothing, but if you're hungry for signs we're going in the right direction, you can take it to mean whatever you like."

Steven let out a half-laugh, half-groan, leaned back in his chair, and covered his face with his hands. "Jin. You really buried the lede on that one, didn't you?"

"As I said, it's likely nothing. Magnemite hiding in the walls, perhaps." But he was smiling now, too—it was faint, but it was real. "Besides, you were the one who insisted on starting this conversation with useless pleasantries."

"Yes, how dare I ask you about pointless things, like whether you've been attacked recently—never mind." Steven shook his head. "Since you're clearly so short on time, I'll let you go. Good work so far. Send me everything you've got on this signal, or interference, or whatever it is, and keep me posted. Maybe it is nothing, but I want to decide that for myself."

"Of course." Jin squared his shoulders and buttoned his suit jacket again. "I should try and enjoy what's left of my break. Then it's back to the grind. No rest for the weary."

"It'll be worth it in the end," Steven said. Jin just curled his lip, shook his head, and tapped a button on his computer. The screen went blank.

For a few minutes, Steven sat still at his desk, thinking. This was the first concrete proof they had, however tenuous it was, that they'd been right—that New Mauville held what they were looking for. Jin was a pessimist, but Steven knew in his bones that this electromagnetic field they'd found wasn't nothing. It was everything.

Steven stood up again and returned to the window. The Devon skyscraper was the tallest building in Hoenn, and on clear days, it felt like every inch of the region was visible. The vast green expanse of Petalburg Woods. The smoldering peak of Mount Chimney. The crumbling walls of Sootopolis, and the uncounted dead that still lay in their rubble.

A disaster like the Calamity would never happen again. The next time godlike forces awoke and tried to put humanity at their mercy, humanity would be able to fight back on even footing. Steven would make sure of it. No matter the cost, he would protect his home.

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It took two weeks for Ceres to fully recover and be cleared for battling. In that time, Hayley threw herself into training. Every minute of every morning was spent on the practice field, and every afternoon was crammed full of drills. Both Barrett and Ceres improved in leaps and bounds. Barrett's new use of feint attack and smog, combined with his willingness to listen to her direction, finally gave Hayley the edge she needed to set herself apart from the other newbies. Instead of just trading hits back and forth, they were able to start battling with something resembling actual strategy. And that gave them the edge they needed to start winning more often than they lost. By the second week, they'd progressed from losing every other battle to losing only one in ten, and some trainers were actually starting to avoid her. She was getting a reputation, and a good one this time. A reputation for being too strong.

She definitely was getting too strong for zero-badge fights, especially once Barrett's practice with smog improved his lung capacity enough that he started breathing foot-long spirals of flame instead of his usual volleys of embers. Fire spin. Barrett was over the moon about his new power, and he'd only bristled a little bit when Hayley said, "I told you all those breathing exercises were good for you."

The Pokédex estimated Barrett's level at a handsome seventeen, and with his new moves, he might even have been strong enough to take out Roxanne on his own. Hayley still waited, though. She wanted to be extra-sure that the next time she challenged the gym, she would win. And for that, she needed her second fighter to be ready.

Ceres was a Slowpoke, and Slowpoke were slow—nothing would change that. But as she ate more and more, as she lumbered through rehabilitation exercises, as her tail healed over and began lengthening once again, she seemed to get a little sharper. Slow, Hayley was coming to realize, didn't mean the same thing as dumb. Yes, it had taken her two full days to learn what "walk" meant, and then the concepts of "walk there" and "walk to that Pokémon" had been a struggle of their own. But once the commands clicked with her, she understood them, and she could perform them over and over again.

Hayley kept Ceres out of her ball as much as she could. She even turned the shower into a makeshift bed for her by putting a damp towel over the drain and running the showerhead at a drip, much to Miriam's displeasure ("Bathrooms are supposed to be for humans"). And she talked to Ceres, too. It had started as a way to get Ceres used to human language, but it was well past that now, and Hayley found herself frequently holding entire one-sided conversations with the Slowpoke. Lectures about what a battle was and how type advantages worked had gradually shifted into accounts of how her training with Barrett was going and what was bothering her that day, which had then led to anecdotes and confessionals about her own life. One time Hayley caught herself twenty minutes deep into an explanation of the cliques and dramas that had plagued her fourth grade class, and she had no idea why she was telling Ceres any of it, except that Ceres appeared to be interested in what she was saying. Ceres was… a good listener? Better than Barrett and Miriam at least, and maybe even better than Connie. No matter how long-winded Hayley got or how stupid the topic was, Ceres would sit there with her eyes locked on Hayley's face, never interrupting, never getting bored. She didn't judge her, and there was no risk of her repeating anything to the wrong person. She just soaked it all up like a sponge as Hayley told her everything and nothing.

After a week of arduous work, Ceres had come to understand what a battle was, how to target an object that Hayley specified, and how to perform a basic headbutt attack. From those building blocks, it was time to finally teach her how to fight. They didn't do real battles at first—not only was Ceres not cleared for fighting, it would have been cruel to throw her onto the field and let her get beat up with no explanation. Instead, they started with play. Barrett refused to take part in this—she wasn't sure he even understood the concept of "play"—so she had to borrow Xena. It began almost like a slow game of tag, or the world's gentlest boxing match. Standing on the sidelines, Hayley would call for Xena to walk up and tap Ceres. Then Xena would back up, and Hayley would tell Ceres to do a headbutt. When Ceres got the hang of that, Hayley gradually upped the difficulty, instructing them both to hit a little harder, and began adding in new twists—defending, yawning, hitting a moving target. Ceres was proud of each new trick she learned, bellowing in satisfaction when Hayley praised her for every small improvement. When her medical hold was cleared, Hayley talked Miriam into going back onto Route 104, and her heart swelled with pride as Ceres slowly but steadily headbutted, water gunned, and yawned at every wild Pokémon Hayley pointed her towards. She'd come so far in such a short time.

Finally, it was the morning of Hayley's fourth, and hopefully final, match against Roxanne. Despite all her preparation, Hayley was consumed by nerves.

"Barrett, you're sure you don't want me to send in Ceres against Geodude first?" Behind the half-closed bathroom door, Barrett huffed. "I get that you have a grudge. But it probably won't be any of the Geodude you fought before. And Ceres' water attacks would be—" A louder, more insistent huff. "Okay, okay, I get it. But you'd better win this time."

Another huff. She really needed to get started on teaching him sign language.

Hayley began brushing her teeth, then abruptly stopped and spat out a mouthful of toothpaste. "Crap, I forgot. I had this idea for a counter. If her Geodude tries to grab you, you can—"

"Will you chill out?" Miriam called from the room behind her. "I'm going to sweep this thing with just Xena. You'll be fine." Xena cheered, and from the shower, Ceres bellowed. Hayley sighed.

Miriam was right. The odds pointed towards a decisive win. But what if the odds were wrong? Losing to Roxanne the first time had shattered all the fragile progress she and Barrett had made. She couldn't afford for that to happen again. It would literally kill her.

And so, over breakfast, Hayley spoke around a mouthful of cereal: "Remember that her Nosepass will only face the back or the front of the arena, but it can still sense you even if it doesn't see you. Her Geodude can sense you too, just not as well. Don't get cocky."

While she ran Barrett and Ceres through pre-battle stretches: "Barrett, you should save your feint attack for when you really need it. I'll call for it if I think you can't dodge a hit without it. I know you really want to show it off, but I promise you'll have a chance to use it even if you don't do it right away, all right?"

As they walked to the gym: "When her Geodude's moving around, make sure to aim at where it's going, not at where it is. It's fast, but it can't change directions quickly, so it won't be able to stop itself from running into your attack." By then, Miriam and Barrett were rolling their eyes in unison every time Hayley opened her mouth.

Miriam's advice to Xena, on the other hand, was short and to the point: "Fuck 'em up, just like we practiced."

Miriam had been practicing a lot. Most of it had been "in secret," so Hayley had barely seen her, aside from their nightly practice battles. Supposedly she'd put together a bulletproof plan to beat Roxanne, but she hadn't told Hayley what it was. Hayley would have to see it for herself.

Since they were partnered together, and their time slots were right after one another, Hayley was allowed to spectate Miriam's match. Miriam would be going first. Hayley had figured that going second would give her a tactical advantage, but as she recalled Barrett and took her seat in the bleachers, she roundly regretted that decision. She just wanted this to be over with.

At the edge of the battlefield, Miriam stood in a wide-legged stance. She rolled her shoulders, and clenched and unclenched her hands into fists. At her feet, Xena swayed back and forth and gave an occasional chirp. Based on the vibes, it looked like Miriam was the one about to go into battle, not her Pokémon. Roxanne, of course, looked as cool as ever. The referee stepped up and gave the spiel that she was so familiar with by now.

"This is a first-tier gym challenge between Miriam Taylor and Leader Roxanne. The format will be a two on two single battle. The challenger is allowed one substitution. Standard League rules are in place. Leader Roxanne, send out your first Pokémon."

Roxanne sent out her Geodude. It slammed its fists into the ground and roared. Miriam scowled at it.

"Challenger, send out your first Pokémon!"

Xena looked up at Miriam, who nodded. The Elekid gave a cheerful war cry and bounded onto the field.

"Begin!"

"Do it," Miriam said. Xena swung her arms behind her, but only once—this wasn't the start of a thundershock. Glowing light gathered in each hand, formless at first, but quickly materializing into the shape of a star. Then she snapped her arms forward again and launched the stars like a pitcher throwing a fastball. The stars wrapped around each other and shot towards the Geodude.

"Rock throw, intercept," Roxanne ordered. The Geodude exploded rocks out of the floor and threw them at the stars. The two attacks collided in midair, the insubstantial stars winking out of existence while the rocks kept going towards Xena.

"Dodge left, keep attacking!" Xena tucked her arms and rolled her barrel-shaped body across the ground, clipping some debris as she went. Hayley winced. After a few rolls, she sprang up again and launched two more stars, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. As she hit her rhythm, her arms began moving almost too quickly for Hayley to follow. The Geodude aimed another barrage at the oncoming stars and took out three of them, but two slipped through and struck it on its rocky skin, exploding into tiny bursts of light that actually knocked it back an inch. It rumbled in displeasure.

Roxanne nodded, though her expression didn't change. "Rollout."

"Quick attack! Stop it from rolling!" The Geodude curled up and rolled just like Xena had moments before, though it somersaulted forward instead of to the side, and crushed the pebbles in its path rather than skipping over them. Before it could build up speed, though, Xena streaked forward and smashed into it head-on. Hayley winced again. The collision probably hurt Xena more than it hurt the Geodude, but it was enough to reverse its momentum, and it rolled back in the direction it had come from. Miriam's fists clenched tighter. "Close-range swift! Don't let it roll!"

Unfortunately, Roxanne was prepared with a counter to that. "Mud-slap." Miriam cursed.

"Shit, back up! Don't get hit or you're screwed!"

What followed was a halting chase across the battlefield. Xena rolled backwards to put distance between herself and the Geodude and launched a pair of swift stars each time she landed, and the Geodude lumbered forward after her, slinging handfuls of mud as it went. Roll, swift, mud-slap, roll. Xena avoided taking a direct hit from the attack, but at this point she was taking damage from the rocky battlefield itself—and she was running out of energy. Her rolls were getting clumsier, and her swifts were taking longer to charge. Miriam had to finish this soon.

Miriam must have been coming to the same conclusion. After the sixth exchange, she abruptly straightened up and nodded. "Now. Xena, finish it."

Xena performed another quick attack, but this time, she leapt directly upward into the air. At the apex of her jump, her body glowed again, and instead of falling straight down, she streaked towards the Geodude. The two Pokémon collided, and the Geodude was driven into the floor. Still, Hayley didn't think it would be enough—until she saw the fractures on its skin. A network of cracks appeared at the points of impact, thin at first, but widening and splitting as the Geodude rolled and righted itself. It roared one last time and tried to strike at Xena, but the movement only widened the cracks further, and its arms went limp mid-punch. It had fainted.

Miriam smirked, and Xena raised her arms and cheered. Roxanne didn't give them the time to celebrate, though. She released her Nosepass onto the field, directly next to Xena, like she'd done in Melinda's fight. Still, neither Miriam nor Xena looked worried. Hayley was worried. The thing was at least three feet tall, and nearly as wide, and it was so heavy that the rocks it materialized onto cracked under its feet. As soon as it solidified, it turned with a snap to face the front of the battlefield.

"Back up and charge," Miriam said.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Rock tomb, block."

Xena ran towards Miriam's end of the field—using her legs, this time. The Nosepass hummed and raised its arms, and new boulders rose out of the ground to cut off Xena's retreat. Xena activated her quick attack to hop over them and keep going. When she was as close to the edge of the field as she could get without being disqualified, she turned back towards the Nosepass and began spinning her arms.

"Rock tomb, disrupt." Another boulder emerged, this one directly under Xena's feet. It caught her by surprise, and she tumbled to the ground. The electricity she'd been building discharged into the dirt with a pop. Miriam scoffed.

"You can dodge that. Pay attention and keep going." Xena obediently hopped back to her feet and started charging again. A second boulder rose under her, but this time she was ready and hopped safely out of the way.

Roxanne changed tactics. "Rock throw, splinter." The Nosepass hummed again. The new boulder cracked, then suddenly exploded into pieces. Xena tried to dodge the shrapnel, but without rolling, she didn't have a chance. A sharp fragment caught her in the forehead, leaving a red line that seeped blood into her fur. Xena cried out and glanced back at Miriam, and Miriam shook her head.

"Keep charging. You need more."

As Xena resumed charging, the spark between her horns grew brighter and brighter. Even at a distance, Hayley was able to hear the crackling it made. The Nosepass exploded a second boulder, and once again Xena futilely dodged. Two more cuts bloomed across her back. Still, she kept going. The spark grew brighter and larger until it broke free of her horns and began arcing across her body.

Hayley had never seen her charge up this much before. Xena's mouth was contorted into a grimace—was this hurting her? The Nosepass exploded a third boulder, and this time she didn't dodge at all—she just kept spinning her arms. One rock shard hit her in the shoulder, disrupting the cycle until she grunted and started it up again.

Hayley realized that Roxanne's expression had changed. Her lips were pursed, and her head was tilted just slightly. She was taking some kind of interest in what Miriam was doing. But was that approval in her eyes? Or scorn?

"Rock tomb, single strike." Hayley gasped as an entire boulder levitated out of the battlefield and pointed towards Xena. The rock was as big as the Nosepass itself—there was no way she could tank a hit like that.

Thankfully, she didn't have to. Whatever threshold of charge Miriam had decided on as enough, Xena had finally reached it. "Do it," she said. Xena screamed, and Hayley's heart stuttered at hearing a noise like that coming from the sweet little Elekid. Then she ran forward. Another order from Roxanne had the Nosepass raise new rocks in her path, but Xena cleared them without even slowing down. She got closer and closer to the Nosepass, and Hayley expected her to stop and fire off a thunderbolt—but she didn't. Instead, she closed the rest of the distance between them and jammed her prongs directly against its body.

Just like she'd done with the Vigoroth.

The flash of Xena's electricity discharging seared spots onto Hayley's vision, and when she blinked it clear again, she saw that the Nosepass was still standing. She was faintly astonished that anything could stand up to a hit like that—and then she realized it hadn't. Its arms had fallen to its sides, and its body listed towards the left. It was unconscious. Xena was doubled over, bracing herself against the ground with her oversized arms. She was panting and bleeding and barely holding onto consciousness herself, but the gleam in her eyes said that she knew she was victorious.

"Roxanne is out of Pokémon! The winner is the challenger, Miriam Taylor!"

Miriam didn't yell or cheer like Hayley had expected her to. She just crossed her arms and nodded, a smug smile growing until it swallowed her entire face. As Hayley clambered down from the bleachers, Miriam turned to her and said, "I told you I could do it."

"That was insane," Hayley said. "Your plan for Nosepass was seriously just to hit it with a really big shock?"

"A really, really big shock. It worked, didn't it?"

"Congratulations on your victory." Roxanne had crossed the field, and now she held out a copper badge to Miriam. The Stone Badge. "Your Elekid has quite a bit of power to be able to knock out one of my Pokémon in one blow. However, I'd like to caution you that charging up too much electricity can be dangerous for an Elekid—as can standing in the path of flying rocks. You may want to adjust that particular strategy in the future."

"Xena's tough. She can take it." Xena toddled over and wrapped her arms around Miriam's leg, nuzzling her. For once, Miriam didn't push her away. She actually looked down at her and smiled. "Great job. You showed everyone what's what."

For the second time ever, Hayley was seeing Miriam happy.

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After that, they were sent back to the waiting room. The battles were in fifteen-minute slots, so Hayley unfortunately had time to kill. She used it to prod Miriam about her strategy. "You were using swift to weaken the Geodude's skin, right? Then you broke it open with one big hit? Where'd you get the idea for that?"

"Internet." She patted Xena's Pokéball, where the Elekid was now taking a well-deserved rest. "Some guy used that combo with an Eevee a few years ago, and I figured we could do the same thing."

Hayley frowned. "So you were just copying someone else?"

"What, are you going to get all judgmental about it?" Miriam scoffed. "Trainers do it all the time. There's like, entire forums for it."

"I'm not being judgmental." She wasn't. Studying other trainers and picking apart their techniques was a normal part of the battling world, and she'd done it plenty of times herself. Still, copying and pasting someone's entire battle plan felt weird. It might not have been wrong, but at the very least, it didn't seem fun.

She couldn't argue with results, though. As of right now, Miriam had the Stone Badge, and Hayley didn't—and that officially made Hayley the last person in her class, aside from the contesters, who hadn't beaten Roxanne. If she wasn't holding a Stone Badge of her own fifteen minutes from now, she was going to have to walk onto a route and lie down to die in quiet shame.

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Finally, it was her turn. Hayley stood at the edge of the field as she had so many times before, with Barrett scowling and breathing smoke at her feet. She could do this, she told herself, as Roxanne appeared at the other end of the field and the referee picked up their flags. Barrett could do this. They could do this.

"This is a first-tier gym challenge between Hayley Summers and Leader Roxanne…" Hayley barely heard the words. She was still repeating the mantra in her head like it was the last thing keeping her together. They could do this. They could do this. Roxanne sent out her Geodude. They could do this.

"Challenger, send out your first Pokémon!"

"You can do it, Barrett," she said. He huffed and stepped onto the field without a backwards glance. He didn't need her to tell him he could handle a battle. She wished she could steal some of that confidence for herself.

"Begin!"

"Go in and fire spin." Barrett put his arms behind him and charged forward. He took a series of deep breaths as he went, cycling as much oxygen as he could into his lungs.

Roxanne gave her first order: "Rock tomb, blockade." Hayley felt a brief flush of pride as she realized this battle was starting out just like Melinda's, but she quickly squashed it. Focus.

The rocks raised in Barrett's path would have been easy for him to curve around, but Barrett opted for a flashier approach. He disappeared into smoke and reappeared behind the Geodude, letting out a lungful of flame just as he coalesced. Hayley sighed. Way to reveal their secret weapon—one of their secret weapons—right at the start of the fight. Still, the move had surprised the Geodude and earned Barrett a solid hit. This battle was already going better than any of the three before it.

"Mud slap, repel."

"Dodge behind! Fire spin!" The Geodude spun itself clockwise with one hand, dragging the other across the battlefield to scoop up a clod of dirt. As soon as it faced Barrett, Barrett ran around it counterclockwise, just like they'd practiced, and landed another fire spin. The Geodude gave a gravelly shout as patches of its skin grew black. It turned again, and Barrett ran behind it again, ducking under its raised arm and taking in another breath.

"Abort. Tackle and melee." The Geodude dropped its handful of mud and launched itself backwards at Barrett, striking him in the stomach. Barrett yelped and tumbled to the ground. As he slowly picked himself up, the Geodude turned to face him, raising its arm for another strike.

Hayley bit her lip. "Feint attack, behind!" Just before the Geodude made contact, Barrett vanished, then reappeared behind it and rammed a mist-wreathed shoulder check right into the patch of blackened skin. The Geodude yelled and tumbled forward. Now—it was time!

"Cross chop!"

They'd been kicked out of one dojo, but Rustboro had others. And while Barrett still couldn't stop a charging rock-type in their tracks, he'd improved enough that they could do this. Barrett lunged forward with his arms raised in an X. The Geodude threw out its own arms to stop its forward roll, but it didn't have time to brace itself before Barrett's blow came down. The strike launched the Geodude across the field like a punted soccer ball, and it somersaulted out of control directly into a massive boulder. The sharp crash of splitting rock rang in Hayley's ears, and the Geodude went still.

Hayley chanced a quick look at Barrett. He saw her looking, snorted, and raised both his arms. Both still good. No new broken bones. And now Roxanne was recalling her Geodude. They'd won.

"Get ready!" Hayley shouted. Barrett's eyes snapped back to Roxanne, and he drew in a huge breath. They'd worked out a counter for Roxanne's Nosepass, but to pull it off, they had to be fast. Roxanne released the Nosepass directly next to Barrett, just like Hayley had expected, and ordered a thunder wave, just like Hayley had expected. But before she could finish, Hayley yelled, "Smog!"

Roxanne's Nosepass didn't have any sensitive parts that would be irritated by smoke, and Barrett wouldn't be able to hide from it as long as he was touching the ground. But, as Hayley had learned from her practice battles with Miriam, smog could do something else. Barrett blew a massive smog cloud directly on top of the Nosepass just as it began to spark. The electricity, meant to leap towards Barrett, instead caught on the smoke cloud and diffused around the Nosepass. From inside the smoke, she heard it give an upset hum.

Nosepass didn't really move anywhere, as a rule, so Hayley had been hoping this would neutralize its use of thunder wave for a while, but of course Roxanne was prepared with a counter. "Rock tomb, plinth." Hayley groaned and Barrett snarled as the ground shuddered and a boulder emerged under the Nosepass itself. The rock wasn't high enough to get it clear of the smoke, but the movement cut through the cloud, thinning it out. And now the Nosepass was too high for Barrett to reliably hit with smog again.

But it wasn't all bad. Roxanne had just set herself up nicely for the next phase of Hayley's plan. "Ring of fire!" Barrett narrowed his eyes and breathed a long, thin streamer of fire. This time, instead of performing the attack in a quick burst, Barrett kept it going. It shot through the air in expanding spirals, growing thinner and longer until it snaked onto the ground under the Nosepass' feet. As soon as it did, Barrett furrowed his brow and threw out his arms. The tail of the fire separated from him and shot forward like an overstretched rubber band, joining the head and flaring into a two-foot-tall ball of flame. Barrett's control wasn't great yet; it wasn't so much a ring of fire as it was a messy bonfire, and the flames quickly shrank from their two-foot height to only six inches. And it took all of Barrett's focus just to keep that much going—which Roxanne was quick to exploit.

"Rock throw, shatter." One of the boulders behind Barrett began to crack.

"Dodge right! Keep focusing!" Barrett, still bent double in concentration, couldn't move quickly enough. The rock exploded, and shrapnel dug into Barrett's scales. He yelped and flinched, and the flames under the Nosepass shrank dangerously low.

"You can do it! Keep going!" Now things were playing out the same way as Miriam's fight, except instead of charging an attack, Barrett had to keep his from dying out. Barrett growled and narrowed his eyes further, raising up the flames again. The Nosepass' skin was beginning to glow red from the heat, but it showed no signs of pain.

Another explosion, another half-dodge. The flames flickered and returned, but they weren't as strong this time. Barrett was bleeding, and still, the Nosepass seemed unharmed. How much punishment could it take? It had to go down eventually, right?

"Dodge forward!" Fragments of rock struck Barrett on the back, sending him sprawling onto the ground. The flames all but disappeared, and as Barrett staggered to his knees, they struggled to climb back over an inch.

The Nosepass would go down eventually. But it wouldn't go down before Barrett.

"Barrett, tap out," Hayley said. It was a signal she'd explained to him beforehand, and it meant you're not going to win, and I want to switch you out, but I won't make you switch out if you don't want to. Barrett had looked at her like she was crazy when she explained it to him, and he looked at her like she was crazy now. Hayley sighed. "All right. Keep going, and get your flames up again!"

Barrett tried, he really did. But the moment the flames licked higher, the Nosepass exploded another rock, and a chunk caught Barrett in the back of the head. He stumbled and went down, and the flames went out. His fight had reached an anticlimactic end. Hayley shook her head and recalled him. She'd wanted to spare him the pain of the last attack, but there had never been a chance he would take her up on the offer. In a weird sort of way, she might have even been disappointed if he did.

Now it was time for Ceres. She'd prepared for this, and they were ready. But as Hayley released the Slowpoke onto the field, her stomach still twisted. The Slowpoke looked strong and healthy, far better than she'd been when Hayley had taken her from her cage three weeks ago. But her pink, unmarked skin stood stark against the scarred battlefield, and as Ceres took in the Nosepass with a yawn, Hayley was struck with the thought—was this really okay? Was she sure Ceres wanted to do this, that she could do this?

Roxanne didn't wait for her to make a decision. "Thunder wave." Hayley winced as the electricity sparked through the air and hit Ceres on the back. Ceres' face didn't change, but her muscles all stiffened at once.

"It's okay," Hayley said, half to herself and half to Ceres. "It's just like when Xena shocks you when you're playing." Ceres gave a small rumble in response. Hayley took a deep breath. "Defend, and then do a water gun. Make it as big as you can."

Roxanne gave Hayley a curious look, apparently puzzled by her sudden change in command style, but ordered an attack all the same. "Rock throw, splinter."

Ceres could do this. They could do this. On the field, Ceres had obediently tightened her muscles as much as she could. Ceres would never be able to dodge attacks the way Barrett or Xena could, so Hayley had trained her to brace herself instead. It had made sense at the time, but now—it meant she was going to sit there and let herself get hit.

A boulder behind Ceres cracked, and the sharp stone raked against her skin. Hayley flinched and glanced away, consumed with inexplicable dread. It would be fine, she thought. Barrett and Xena had both made it through this, and Slowpoke were tougher than either Elekid or Magby. So why did it feel so much worse when it was Ceres?

She forced herself to look back at the field. Ceres was bleeding, just like Barrett and Xena had been bleeding. She would probably scar, just like they would scar. And—she didn't seem to notice, or if she noticed, she didn't care. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't screwed up her face in pain. She was still tilting her head back, fighting against the paralysis to power up one big water gun. Just like Hayley had told her.

"Water gun," Hayley whispered. "Do it." A few moments passed, and just as another boulder behind her began to crack, Ceres opened her mouth and grunted. A thin but strong stream of water came forth and hit the Nosepass dead center. On its own, it wouldn't have been enough to do damage. But its skin was still glowing from Barrett's flames, and as the water hit it, it evaporated with a hiss and a snap and a burst of steam. The Nosepass hummed, and the boulder behind Ceres shattered, but instead of flying towards her, the fragments fell to the ground. Abruptly, Ceres winced, as though the cuts inflicted from its last attack had finally registered with her, but she didn't stop. She kept her water gun going for several more seconds, until the Nosepass was fully doused. The Nosepass shuddered as the skin around its body split—and that small movement was its literal downfall. It lost its footing on the uneven boulder and went crashing to the ground. There, it lay on its side and shuddered once more, before finally going still.

The referee raised a flag. "Roxanne is out of Pokémon! The winner is the challenger, Hayley Summers!"

They had done it. They'd won. They'd beaten Roxanne. Hayley stood frozen for a moment, hardly able to believe it. Then Ceres bellowed, and Hayley snapped out of her stupor. A grin broke across her face, and she raced onto the field, kneeling down to wrap her arms around Ceres.

"You did it! You were so good!" Ceres responded with a happy rumble. "Oh, that was such a great water gun! I'm so proud of you!"

Of course, most of the work had been Barrett. But Barrett was currently unconscious. She'd praise him later, and he would pretend to hate it, especially since he'd be sore about losing to the Nosepass. She wouldn't let him stay in a bad mood, though. Even if it took hours of appealing to his ego and a full plate of aspear berries to bring him around, she was going to make sure they all enjoyed this victory.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat above her. Roxanne was standing there, a Stone Badge in one hand and a pointed expression on her face. Hayley flushed and scrambled to her feet.

"Perseverance is an important quality in a trainer." Hayley's blush deepened, and she looked at her shoes. "It may have taken you a few tries, but that doesn't make your win any less impressive. Your strategy was quite good, particularly against Nosepass. Using both smoke and flames to interfere with thunder wave is cleverer than I'd expect from a first-tier trainer."

Wait, fire could stop electric attacks too? Hayley's mouth dropped open, and she hurriedly shut it again. "Uh—thanks. I'm just glad it worked."

Roxanne held out the Stone Badge, and Hayley took it. The weight of it barely felt real. She wrapped her hand tightly around it, and the pointed edges dug into her palm. It was real.

"A word of advice? Don't take your eyes from the battlefield next time. If you look away when your Pokémon is injured, it gives your opponent the opportunity to harm them even more."

"Yeah. I know." She still didn't know why she had balked like that in the first place, but it wouldn't happen again. Hayley looked into Roxanne's eyes and swallowed. This was the only chance she would have, as a regular trainer, to speak with Roxanne face to face. And as the post-battle haze faded, memories of Ennis and what he'd told her began filtering in. Should she bring it up? The protests, the controversy? It was now or never. And Roxanne couldn't take her badge away just because she got angry, right?

…Right?

As Roxanne turned and made to walk away, Hayley spoke. "Um. I was wondering." Roxanne glanced over her shoulder with a small, patient smile. "There were those protests that were happening in front of your gym, a few weeks back? And I was wondering—what do you think of Steven Stone?"

She'd known the question was rude, and that Roxanne probably wouldn't like it. But she hadn't realized just how chilling it would be to see Roxanne's eyes go hard, her smile slip away into a thin, tight line. Hayley's stomach plummeted, and she desperately wished she could take the words back. But it was too late.

"Why do you ask?" Her friendly tone was gone, and in its place was the kind of controlled evenness that Hayley knew came right before punishments and detention. Hayley forced herself not to turn tail and run, to keep looking Roxanne in the eye.

"I was just wondering," she said again. It was the only thing she could think to say. Roxanne studied her for a while longer before finally answering.

"Steven Stone is a valued colleague and a cornerstone of this city, as he always has been. I'd advise you not to pay attention to rumors and gossip about things that don't concern you—they'll only rot your brain."

When Hayley didn't say anything back, Roxanne looked forward again and strode off the field. The referee also gave Hayley the evil eye before following Roxanne out. Great—Hayley had ruined the moment and made a gym leader hate her. She didn't even feel like celebrating anymore.

"Holy shit, what did you say?" Miriam asked, showing up at her side. "She looked pissed."

"I… It was nothing." Hayley shook her head. "Never mind. Let's go; I want to get out of Rustboro City."

----------------------------------------

"I'm just saying, I beat Roxanne on my first try. And I only used one Pokémon."

"You seriously had an advantage over her Nosepass, though. It couldn't paralyze Xena, and her electric attacks were more effective than Barrett's fire."

"Yeah, but my disadvantage against her Geodude was way worse than yours was. You're just making excuses because you suck."

After a month and a half, it was finally time to leave the cramped Pokémon Center dorm. Hayley and Miriam were packing up the last of their things, and Miriam was using the opportunity to revive the argument they'd had three weeks earlier.

"Our bet was that you'd beat the gym trainer on the first try, remember?" Hayley shook a potion bottle, determined that it was still at least half-full, and stuffed it into her backpack.

"No, our bet was that I'd beat Roxanne on the first try. Which I did. Besides, that gym trainer cheated, remember?"

"Type advantages aren't cheating."

"Whatever." Miriam tossed yet another empty chip bag from the top bunk to the growing pile on the floor. Gross. "Just admit that you suck and get it over with."

"I don't suck!"

Okay, she did suck, a little bit. It had taken her way too long to get the Stone Badge, and now she was behind everybody else in her class. She'd forced herself to uninstall the Trainer's Eyes app after Wesley and Kei both got their own badges, and she dreaded what she would see when she downloaded it again. For all she knew, Melinda was all the way at Victory Road by now. But Hayley could catch up to her, and to everyone else. There was that story her mother had always told her about how slower people could win in the end. The Torkoal and the Buneary.

Hayley had never thought she'd wind up being the Torkoal in that story. But it meant she'd win, right? They could laugh at her all they wanted, but she could still win.

"Fuck, I forgot to charge my Gameboy." Miriam held up the lime-green handheld and glared at it like it had personally wronged her. "I'm not going to have anything to do on the stupid ferry ride."

"You have your phone, right?" Hayley had moved to the bathroom and was draining the last bit of water out of Barrett's hot water bottle. "Just play games on that."

"I can't play Super Lucario World on my phone. Duh. You're such a jock."

Abruptly, Hayley flashed back to a conversation they'd had on their first day out together, all the way on the south side of Route 104. "Isn't there a new one of those out? The Gameboy Supreme, or something?"

"The Gameboy Special, and yeah, it's been out for a week." Miriam scoffed. "And if you're going to tell me to buy one, don't. I don't have the cash for it."

"Wait, really?" Hayley popped her head out of the bathroom and stared at her in disbelief. "You just got a ton of money for winning against Roxanne. How much does one of those things cost?"

Miriam folded her arms. "I had to spend the money on other stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just stuff. Shut up, okay? It's none of your business."

Hayley didn't press any further. She didn't have to, because she'd suddenly realized that Miriam's backpack, thrown carelessly into the corner, was a bigger, fancier backpack than the one she'd started out with. It had tons of pockets, straps to redistribute weight, and all sorts of other jock features. And when Miriam clambered down from the top bunk, dead Gameboy in hand, Hayley saw that she'd swapped out her battered sneakers for a new pair of stiff black hiking boots.