It was hard to say whether the Dewford Pokémon Center dorms were better or worse than the ones in Rustboro. The vibes were completely different. The Rustboro dorms were set up like university or boarding school housing, cramming dozens of boxy rooms into hallways and then stacking hallways as high as they could go. The Dewford dorms, on the other hand, put Hayley in the mind of summer camp barracks. Rows and rows of tiny wooden cabins sprawled over the sand as far as the eye could see, each standing on foot-high stilts and adjoining its neighbors via a slatted wooden porch and stairs. On the one hand, the setup meant that Hayley and Miriam wouldn't be sharing a single building with hundreds of other trainers. On the other hand, it meant it took fifteen minutes of trekking over wood-plank walkways to get from the Center proper to the cabin with a door marked "304." As soon as Hayley worked the door open, Miriam collapsed onto the floor with a dramatic groan.

"This place sucks."

"At least it's bigger than what we had in Rustboro." Hayley didn't actually know whether it was any bigger. The floor plan was exactly the same, with rustic wood paneling replacing the cinderblock walls and a ceiling fan and window air conditioning unit standing in for the central air. Despite the boardwalk, stairs, and porch doing their best to knock the sand from Hayley and Miriam's boots, the floor already looked gritty. Hayley doubted that it was ever really clean.

Hayley glanced over at the bed—

"I call the top bunk," Miriam said from the floor. Hayley wrinkled her nose.

"You got the top last time!"

"Yeah, and? I called it. Ugh, why is it so hot in here?"

For once, Miriam wasn't just complaining over nothing. Hayley's weather app had informed her that Dewford was in the grip of a brutal heat wave, and nobody knew when it would break. Weather patterns over Hoenn had been weird and tricky since the Calamity; it could last for two more days, or two more weeks. Either way, Hayley was soaked in so much sweat that she looked like she'd swam from Rustboro to Dewford, rather than taking the ferry.

Actually, swimming sounded pretty nice right now. "I'm going to go to the beach," Hayley said. "Do you want to come?"

Miriam moaned again. "No. I'm going to stay here and die until the air conditioning starts working."

The air conditioning wasn't actually turned on, Hayley realized. She could have pointed that out. But she didn't. Call it revenge for the bed.

Hayley swapped her clothes for a swimsuit, her boots for flip-flops, and her backpack for a drawstring dry bag. It helped a little, but the oppressive, humid air still clung to her like a fog, and she immediately began sweating off the thick layer of sunscreen she'd applied. She sighed and dropped her two Pokéballs to the ground. Maybe one of them would appreciate the weather more than she did.

As it turned out, they were more interested in the sand than the heat. Barrett lifted each of his feet in turn when he materialized, waggling his toes and scrunching his face. Ceres tried to stand, but her feet slipped as the sand shifted, dropping her back on her stomach. She tried again, moving her legs forward and back like she was making a snow angel (sand angel?), but failed to find a solid surface and flopped down once more. Finally, she stared up at Hayley and bellowed for help.

"Have neither of you seen sand before?" That didn't seem possible. This was Hoenn; sand was everywhere. But then, Barrett wasn't from Hoenn, and Ceres had been kept inside. Huh. "Well, you'd better get used to it. Brawly's arena is just one big sand pit."

Barrett huffed and shot a ribbon of fire onto the offending ground, then did a double take at the red-hot patch it left behind. Ceres grunted and tried to stand up again, only to splay her limbs out even further. Given that both of them were still donning the bandages from yesterday's match against Roxanne, Hayley had planned on giving them today to rest and relax, but apparently even walking to the beach was going to be an adventure.

Once Ceres had been extracted and found her footing, and once Barrett had been convinced to stop burning pits into the ground, they set off towards the beach. Their route took them past the outskirts of Dewford Town, and Hayley craned her neck to study it as they went. The Dewford Town of today was being carefully rebuilt to resemble how Dewford Town had been pre-Calamity, but that was the key—it was being rebuilt. Cranes and scaffolding stood starkly against the picturesque landscape, and the sounds of the ocean and Wingull calls were periodically interrupted by the beeping and scraping of heavy machinery. Even in the parts that were mostly finished, Hayley could see the seams. The buildings were a little too new, the asphalt roads a little too smooth. Artful "distressed" paint jobs and retro patio furniture couldn't make up for the fact that this place had been lived in for only a couple years.

Dewford Island was a fifty-fifty split between sheer rock formations and low-lying sandy beaches, and when the tectonic waves and subsequent tsunamis of the Calamity had made landfall, the cliffs had crumbled and the beaches had been washed away. Anything built close to the ocean—which, unfortunately, most of Dewford was—had been swept into the sea. The human loss of life hadn't been as bad as in Sootopolis and Pacifidlog, thanks to advance warning and a well-executed evacuation to higher ground, but the loss of Pokémon life had been catastrophic, and the property damage was total. Rebuilding from what was left had been such a massive task that, for a while, nobody had known whether it would even happen, or whether the island would just be abandoned. Finally, the Devon Corporation had stepped up and agreed to fund the cost of restoration, in exchange for mineral rights to the entire island. Now, Dewford's famous caves had been expanded into mining tunnels, and the town had worker housing built alongside its tourist hotels. Not everybody was happy about it, but… it wasn't like there had been a lot of options.

Hayley shook her head. She wasn't here for the local politics—getting caught up in that in Rustboro had been bad enough. She was here for the Knuckle Badge, and maybe a new Pokémon, if she could get Barrett to agree to that.

They found a section of the beach that wasn't crowded with people, and Hayley dumped her bag on the ground and beelined straight for the water. It was warmer than she would have liked, but still heaven as the waves crashed over her head. She waded out up to her shoulders before turning around and coming back onto the sand. Barrett and Ceres both stared at her, astonished.

"Ceres, you should come in too. You'll like it." Ceres bellowed and slowly inched forward. As she approached the waterline, a wave broke and sent water rushing over her feet. As soon as Ceres looked down, it was gone. She looked out towards the ocean, but by then another wave had come, dousing her feet and stomach again. She looked down again as the water receded—

Hayley grinned. "Barrett, do you want to come in too?" As expected, he snorted in disgust. "Okay, well, come a little closer, okay? I want to talk to both of you." He picked his way reluctantly across the damp sand, brow furrowing deeper with each step. When he was close enough, Hayley crossed her arms across her chest in an "x" shape.

"Pay attention, all right? Barrett especially, but I want you both to learn this." She uncrossed her arms, then crossed them again, knocking her wrists together for emphasis. "This means fight. You can use it when you want to battle someone." Next, she curled one hand and tapped her mouth. "This is food. You can use it when you're hungry." Finally, she put her left hand flat in front of her and made a chopping motion onto it with her right. "This is stop. You can use it if you want to stop doing something, like if you're tired from training and want to take a break."

Barrett stared at her with one arched eyebrow. She didn't need sign language to know that he thought this was extremely stupid. "Barrett, this is important. I want you to be able to talk to me, not just grunt at me. Show me fight." Barrett huffed, but Hayley persisted, crossing her arms to perform the sign again. "Fight. Come on." After a few more rounds, Barrett finally relented and made the sign back at her, though he gave her the stink eye the entire time. "Good. You can remember it because it's sort of like how you put your arms for a cross chop. Now food." Hayley lifted her hand to her mouth, and Barrett grudgingly mirrored her. "Right. You can remember it because you're touching your mouth, which is where food goes. And stop." Barrett signed that one without her leading him through it. Clearly he wanted to stop this entire exercise. "All right. That's good. We're going to be practicing signs every day along with our drills from now on, and you're going to start using them, too." From her bag, she withdrew a new package of aspear Pokéblocks. Barrett immediately snapped to attention. "For example, if you want one of these, then you have to tell me you want it. Show me the sign for food."

Barrett didn't sign for food, but he did lurch forward and try to grab the package out of her hands. Hayley snatched it away and tapped her mouth with her free hand. "Food. Use your signs." Barrett snarled. Hayley stood firm and made the sign again. "Food. Or, do you not want them after all? I guess I can just give them to Ceres." Ceres hated aspear berries, but Barrett didn't need to know that. At last, glaring the whole time, Barrett raised one arm and tapped a hand to his mouth. Hayley smiled, tore open the pack, and gave two of the blocks to Barrett. "There. See? Everything's easier when we communicate."

Ceres watched the whole exchange with rapt attention. She couldn't sign, since she didn't have arms, or hands. But once she evolved, she'd become bipedal, and if she picked up some vocabulary now, they wouldn't have to start from zero. Plus, this way Barrett could talk to her with words, not just the general ideas communicated by Pokémon language.

Hayley was getting hot again. She took another dive into the ocean, then came back and sat down once more at the water's edge. "Okay. That was the first thing I wanted to talk to you about. The second thing is Brawly. Now, I'm sure we can beat him if we work hard at training, but we've got some problems." She raised a finger to count off problem number one. "First, his Makuhita. Makuhita have crazy thick skin that won't even feel things like heat or cold. It basically makes them like rock-types, but better. So, Barrett, you're going to have to hit it with a ton of flames and do a bunch of damage before you start affecting it. Which brings us to problems two, three, and four." She raised three more fingers. "Problem two is that once your fire attacks do start hurting the Makuhita, they'll actually make it stronger. Problem three is that that applies to his Machop as well. They both have this… ability, sort of, where when they're in a lot of pain, their bodies start hitting harder instead of shutting down. Fire attacks obviously hurt a lot, so once they feel you hitting them, they're basically going to go berserk. And problem four is that poison does this just as much as fire does, so we don't have a lot of options."

And if that wasn't enough… Hayley sighed, turned to Ceres, and lifted her fifth finger. "Problem five is that Brawly teaches every single one of his Pokémon to surf. They spend so much time in the ocean that any water attacks you hit them with are just going to bounce right off." Ceres grunted in apparent sympathy. "So, this is going to wind up being as much of a slog as Roxanne's match was. We've got to work on stamina, on evading hits, on taking hits. Barrett, the more control and power you get with your fire spin, the better your chances, so that's going to be our number one focus. I'm going to have you practice using it on yourself, too, as sort of a shield—which is also going to help you learn flame wheel, and I know you want that." Barrett's eyes glittered, and to her surprise, he actually raised his arms in an X—fight. "Ceres…"

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Ideally, Ceres would learn some psychic attacks. Based on what Hayley's Pokédex said, she ought to be able to use a basic confusion technique by now. But Ceres hadn't shown any sign of budding psychic ability, and if showing her how to use water gun had been tricky, showing her how to use confusion would impossible. Hayley couldn't move things with her mind, and she didn't know any Pokémon that could, aside from Marcie. Well, there was Mallory, but given that Psyduck generally didn't know how their own psychic powers worked, she didn't expect he'd be a very good teacher. Developing her psychic side was probably going to have to wait until Hayley and Connie met up again.

"Ceres, you'll keep working on your water gun, yawn, and defend techniques. It'll take a long time and a lot of hits for you to bring his Pokémon down, but they'll be moving around a lot and you won't, so you should be able to outlast them in the end."

Ceres yawned, making Hayley yawn back. "Good. Like that. We're going to hold off on training until tomorrow, though. Today, let's just have fun."

They hung out at the beach until the sun started going down. Ceres got the hang of how waves worked, and waded out a little further so she could duck her head under them as they came in. Barrett spent the time trying and failing to melt the sand around him, after Hayley made the mistake of telling him that really hot sand could turn into glass. He was nowhere near being able to do it, though, and probably wouldn't be until he evolved. That was a shame; glassing Brawly's entire arena would have been a fun way to win. Eventually, they were all exhausted, and made their way back through the sticky evening air to their waiting cabin.

There was sound coming from behind the door. Hayley paused before she opened it, listening. It sounded like a television show.

"We need to reach Professor Mutant's ship! Lily, go after them with your flight!"

"B-but it's so high up! What if I fall?"

"Bordeaux can catch you! Wait—where's Bordeaux?"

"OVER HERE, EGGHEAD!"

Hayley pushed open the door to see Miriam slumped against the far wall, directly underneath the humming air conditioner, with her cell phone balanced on her knees. Xena sat in the corner a safe distance away, working at a scrambled Rubik's cube. As Hayley entered, Miriam's head snapped up. She grabbed at her phone, but in her hurry, she knocked it to the ground. Hayley glanced at the screen, which was showing a colorful set of costumed heroes as a familiar tune blasted through the speakers.

"Bordeaux, you can't! Metatwo's plasma cannon is still untested; we don't know what it'll do!" Miriam shot forward, snatched up the phone, and muted the volume. Hayley raised an eyebrow.

"Were you watching Hoenn Rangers Coexistence Force?"

"No. Xena was watching it." From her corner, Xena looked up and chirped, confused but happy to agree. "It's a dumb show for babies. Do you watch it?"

"Not since I was like, eight." All right, she did still have a Pacifidlog Cobalt figurine somewhere in her bedroom at home, but that was different. It was a collectible. Pacifidlog Cobalt had been written out of the show after Pacifidlog itself was destroyed.

For the first time Hayley had ever seen, Miriam was wearing something besides a heavy black tee shirt. Even with the air conditioner at full blast, the heat in the cabin had evidently been too much, and she'd switched to a black tank top. Miriam noticed Hayley looking at her and crossed her arms in front of her with a scowl, but not before Hayley spotted a raised, ugly, crescent-shaped scar standing out on the pale skin below her left shoulder.

"What's that from?" she blurted out. Miriam's scowl deepened.

"What's what from." It was a warning, but after a day baking in the sun, Hayley's brain was too slow to catch it.

"The scar. Right under your shoulder…" Miriam's entire body went stiff. Belatedly, Hayley realized her mistake.

"Why are you so fucking nosy all the time?" Her voice was cold enough to drop the temperature of the room by several degrees. Hayley swallowed.

"Sorry, I was just—" Miriam didn't let her finish. She grabbed her backpack and went into the bathroom. When she came out, she was once again wearing an oversized Super Lucario World tee shirt.

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

The current standing was this: everybody, except the contesters, had the Stone Badge. Osmund and Campbell had the Knuckle Badge and were in Mauville City. Howie, Chad, and Melinda also all had the Knuckle Badge, but were still in Dewford, likely because Caleb and Kei didn't have it yet. Caelin and Wesley were in Verdanturf, for some reason, with each of them still only having the Stone Badge. And Forrest and Corbin appeared to have skipped Dewford altogether, because both were in Mauville, with Forrest marked as having earned the Beam Badge, the new badge from Jin in Mauville City.

Nobody had three badges yet. In fact, half her classmates were still at the one-badge level. That brought Hayley some comfort. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was behind.

As for the contesters, all four of them had moved to Slateport City. In addition to earning the required ten points, each of them had had to earn first place in at least one Normal rank contest to move on to the Super rank. In a surprise upset, Addison had been the first one of the group to achieve this. According to Connie, even Addison admitted that it had been a fluke; in the appeals round, her Swirlix had improvised a brand-new, highly complex song with its round technique, which had impressed the judges enough to earn her top marks. They hadn't been able to repeat the performance since. Clarissa was the second to earn first place, while Connie had been the third. At this point, the thing holding Connie back was her battle round performance. Marcie still hesitated too much while fighting, and her attacks never hit very hard. Connie wasn't as frustrated with this as Hayley had expected her to be, though. It helped that Marcie's non-battle technique kept improving, and at this point Connie was consistently outscoring Clarissa in the appeals round, which, as Connie put it, was "the real point of contests anyway."

Skye had been the last to squeak out a first-place win. From what Hayley had heard secondhand, she had the opposite problem from Connie—her battle round scores were great, but she struggled to appeal well enough to reach them in the first place. As someone who had never fully understood what it was that made an appeals routine "good," Hayley found herself having an unusual amount of sympathy for her.

Anyway. Since Howie was here in Dewford Town, Hayley wanted to meet up with him. She felt bad about having ghosted him during her losing streak, and she didn't want him to think she'd been mad at him or something when it had all been because of her own issues. So she'd shot him a text, and he'd happily agreed to come see her. Now, Hayley sat under an umbrella at a Pokémon-friendly outdoor café, waiting for him to show up. Ceres lounged under the table on a damp towel Hayley had set up to keep the pavement from burning her skin. She was already pinker than usual from having spent yesterday at the beach—in her rush to get to the water and cool down, Hayley had failed to consider that Ceres would need sunscreen just like she did. Sunburn hadn't been as much of a problem in Rustboro, with its shady places to train, but Dewford had so much sun. Barrett, of course, was still thriving in the wilting heat and sunlight.

Hayley leaned her elbows on the uncomfortably warm tabletop as she scanned the crowd. Not him, not him… There! Howie looked the same as he always did, except now he had three Pokémon walking alongside him. The first one that caught her eye was a Nuzleaf that stood as tall as his chest. Then there was Mona clanking faithfully at his side—and then, darting ahead of all of them, then behind them, then weaving between Howie's legs, was a Growlithe. Howie caught sight of Hayley and paused, which made the Growlithe let out a loud bark. Howie looked down at it and put a finger to his lips, and the Growlithe obediently flattened its ears, snapped its jaw shut, and gave a muted chuff.

Hayley glanced down at Barrett, and an ugly, unwanted voice made itself known in her head. It reminded her that when she'd rolled the dice on the GTS, a Growlithe like that had been exactly the sort of Pokémon she'd been hoping to get. Friendly, upbeat, obedient, and eager to walk by her side as they conquered the League together, not jaded, scowling, and constantly taking their measure of her and judging her inadequacies.

She squashed that voice. She had Barrett, and she had to do right by him. And that meant she wouldn't, she couldn't, compare him to the cheerful puppy that was heading her way with a wagging tail.

Howie took the seat across from her at the table, heaving up Mona to sit beside him. His Growlithe darted underneath the table to sniff at Ceres first, then Barrett, then Hayley, but recalled to Howie's side when he gave a quick whistle. His Nuzleaf took a seat at the very edge of the bench, turning to the side to watch the crowd with its arms crossed. Mona's faceplate had healed smooth by now, but she still cast a wary glance at Barrett. She clearly remembered their fight. So did Howie, who was also looking Barrett up and down. So did Barrett. He stared right back at the Aron, embers dribbling from his beak. Hayley nudged him on the shoulder, and he started and glared at her with a huff. "Be good."

Howie tore his eyes from Barrett and cleared his throat. "Um. Hey, I'm glad you finally made it to Dewford." Hayley winced, and Howie immediately backtracked. "I didn't mean it like that—"

"No, it's okay," Hayley muttered. "It did take us a long time."

"You got it in the end, though. I watched the video of your battle; Barrett's getting pretty strong." Mercifully, he didn't add, "and he's actually listening to you." Barrett preened, puffing a plume of white smoke into the air. "Your Slowpoke's no slouch, either. Where did you get her? I didn't think there were any Slowpoke colonies on this side of Hoenn."

"It's kind of a long story." At Hayley's feet, Ceres finished sizing up the Growlithe that was still sniffing in her direction, and opened up mouth for a yawn. Hayley poked her with a toe. "No yawning, Ceres. Anyway, the short version is that I took her off a guy who was selling her tails."

"Oh." Howie's face went grim.

"Yeah. And she needed someone to take care of her after, so… We kind of stuck together." Changing the subject, she added, "Where did you get a Growlithe?"

Howie's chest visibly swelled with pride. "Bea? I got her from one of the Rangers I'm interning under. His Arcanine whelped, and he said he normally doesn't give her puppies to rookies, but that he thought I could handle her." Bea barked, and Howie beamed down at her. "Her father's an Espeon, which is a pretty rare lineage for a Growlithe, but it means she's really clever. And she knows the morning sun technique."

Hayley was sure her eyes were turning green by now, but she managed a semi-sincere "That's so cool" all the same. Then she frowned. "Wait, back up. You're doing what with the Rangers?"

"Oh yeah, I didn't tell you. It's an unofficial thing, but—" If Howie's grin got any wider, his face would crack in half. "They're looking for extra help to keep the Lairon in the mines under control, since it's breeding season and they're getting pretty aggressive. Usually new trainers don't qualify, but my dad put in a good word for me, since I'm Ranger track and I have Mona. It's been really great so far—I mean, all they have me do is shadow them on patrols, help put up repel wards, that sort of thing, but it's my first real step to being a Ranger."

Only Howie would be excited at the idea of working during what was supposed to be a journey-slash-vacation. Then again, Hayley would probably jump at the chance to intern under a League trainer—but that was different. Battling was fun, not work. "How long have you been doing it?" she asked.

"About three weeks. They took me on right after I got to Dewford. It's worked out well, since Caleb and Chad wanted to spend some time taking lessons in Brawly's gym."

"I might wind up doing that too," Hayley muttered. As long as she didn't start another losing streak, she'd probably have the money for a week of classes, maybe two. Hopefully that would be enough time for Barrett to perfect his cross chop, and for her to learn how the hell to beat a Makuhita.

A waiter came by then to take their orders, and for a while, conversation shifted from the subject of training to the subject of food. Barrett wound up choosing protein pancakes with aspear compote, while Hayley got a rawst berry salad for Ceres. Mona, Bea, and Willa—Howie's Nuzleaf—got pellets sprinkled with iron filings, a Magikarp fillet, and a chia bowl, respectively. Howie and Hayley split skewers of roasted berries, peppers, and tofu. With their meals as a catalyst, the mood gradually evolved from awkward to companionable. Hayley apologized for how she'd been in Rustboro, and was relieved to find that Howie didn't hold it against her. But then, he never held anything against anyone. Howie recounted his battle against Brawly, and how Willa had evolved at the last moment right before Brawly's Makuhita had taken her down. Willa herself mostly ignored the rest of them, playing the part of disaffected teenager as middle evolutions so often did, but Hayley thought she saw her lips twitch whenever Howie brought her up. Bea and Barrett kept their eyes on each other as they ate, as though sizing each other up; both Howie and Hayley had to intervene a few times when the Pokémon's muscles twitched, ready to jump into battle right then and there. Mona, for her part, was more interested in Ceres, and eventually hopped off the bench with a clank to join her on her towel. The two sat side by side, each humming or grunting occasionally, but mostly watching their teammates and trainers in content silence.

Hayley was happy. Despite the heat, despite the cramp in her legs from the uncomfortable bench and the burns on her tongue from the too-hot skewers, she wanted the meal to last forever. If the rest of her time in Dewford could be like this, she thought, she wouldn't mind if it took another month and a half for her to beat Brawly. Moments like this were what training was all about.