Steven Stone was a fool. No matter how he tried to downplay it, he'd been born into a position of power and had everything he could possibly want or need handed to him. He didn't understand what it was to struggle, what it took to fight for every inch of control.

That was where Jin came in. His job, willingly shouldered, was to handle the drudgery and dirty work that men like Steven didn't want to deal with.

Steven's goals were noble, of course, and they aligned nicely with Jin's own philosophy, though Steven would deny that to his dying breath. The mastery of humanity over wild forces, the beauty of order prevailing where once there had been only chaos. At one point in his life, Jin had wanted to be a mathematician, though of course that dream had never been realized. He'd become a fighter instead.

To the woman standing in front of his desk, he said, "I don't understand what's taking so long. Our schedule said we should be nearing the fiftieth floor by now, correct?"

"Leader Jin, sir, with all due respect, there have been complications—"

"An allotment for complications was built into the schedule. There's no reason for a delay of this magnitude."

"The lower part of the structure is more deteriorated than we expected," the woman said, her voice infuriatingly patient, as though she was giving this explanation to a particularly dim child. "We need to install reinforcements before going further, or else we'll risk a collapse."

"And how long will that take?"

"Our engineers have already finished running the numbers and drawing up plans. We've filed the permits and put a rush on the construction materials, and the work is expected to complete in four to six weeks—"

Jin cut her off. "No."

"…No?"

Jin sighed and rubbed his temples. The threat of a migraine had been gnawing at him all morning, and now the lights were starting to shimmer. He needed this conversation to be over. "No, four to six weeks isn't acceptable. You need to get it done quicker."

"Sir, we can't." The condescension was back. Jin gritted his teeth. "The approvals process alone will take—"

"What approvals process? New Mauville is under my jurisdiction alone, and I say it's approved."

"Yes, but the land around New Mauville is home to several protected species of flora, and bringing in the heavy machinery we'd need for this operation needs approval from the Board of Conservation. It's all in the report I sent you this morning." He didn't miss the pointed tone that came along with that last sentence, but he gracefully chose to ignore it. No, he hadn't read the report. He hadn't had time to read the report. He was still working his way through the tangle of the Greater Mauville Holdings documents, and having to spend half his daylight hours battling instead of working didn't help. Jin hadn't had time to eat yet today, much less read the report.

The Board of Conservation. Protected flora. What was wrong with this country? Nature had tried to kill them all in the Calamity, and it had very nearly succeeded. Yet they still treated the wilderness like a consumptive child in need of constant care. He didn't say any of that. Instead he slumped closer to his desk and tugged his fingers through his hair. Greasy. He hadn't had time to shower this morning, either. In fact, had he yesterday…?

The Board of Conservation surely had some pragmatists on staff. They would fold with a bit of pressure and financial incentive, but that was yet another thing he'd have to handle himself, because his own staff was incompetent and he couldn't trust one of them not to spew something like that to the media. In the meantime—"What about the Beldum?"

"Like I wrote in my report, the Beldum plan is—"

"Leader Jin." A new voice. Someone else in his office. He looked up again, and got an icepick to the brain as the bright light assaulted his eyes. He clenched his jaw—it made the pain worse, but it was his pain. Something he could control. When his vision focused, he saw that it was another gods-damned League trainer that had interrupted them. Why? He still had time, didn't he? He checked his watch and found that he couldn't read the hands. He didn't need to, though, as the League trainer spoke up again. "Five-minute warning. They need you at the battlefield."

Jin shut his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. Pain. To the League trainer, he said, "I'll be there momentarily." To the woman standing in front of his desk, he said, "We'll continue this conversation later. You're dismissed." As they both left, he stood up, tied his hair back into a loose ponytail, and retrieved his suit jacked from the backrest of his chair. He was sure he looked like hell, but it didn't matter. He'd told the cameras to stop focusing in on his face.

Wattson's main office had been a ten-minute walk from the battlefield. Jin had relocated to a smaller, closer one, one that would let him make the trip in three minutes. Three minutes there, three minutes back. Six minutes wasted for every battle, not counting the time spent on the battle itself—time he couldn't afford to waste. A gym leader could delegate most of their non-battling duties to subordinates or civil officials, but Jin was also CEO of Devon, and in that role, nobody could do what he did. Two jobs, and not enough hours in the day to do them, because the sport of competitive battling was a glutted beast that needed to be fed and fed and fed.

He entered the ready room with one minute to spare. Another League trainer pressed two Pokéballs into his hands. "Corbin Fisher, second-badge fight," he informed Jin. "You've got Dymium and Nobelium. Remember that Dymium's been a little erratic lately, you'll need to keep an eye—"

"Yes, I know how to do my job, thank you." Jin snapped the balls to his belt and walked towards the field. Behind him, he heard the League trainer mutter, "prick." He ignored it.

He took his place on the raised platform, body seizing with nausea as the stadium lights shone down on him. Why had Wattson built his arena to be so damn bright? He could barely hear the referee through the pounding in his head. But it was fine; he'd fought in worse states; after this he could go back to his office and shut the door and get five blessed minutes of silence and darkness to himself. Second-badge, at least, was easy and quick and barely required him to think at all.

At the referee's signal and simultaneous buzzer—how he hated that buzzer—he released his Magnemite. His opponent, another faceless child, released a Taillow. A Taillow. Was this a joke? Fine. If his opponent didn't respect him, then he didn't need to waste time respecting his opponent.

"Thunder wave," he said.

"Double team and air cutter!" His opponent was far more excited, even throwing out a hand as he gave the command. The single Taillow split into two, four, eight Taillows that each launched a compressed blade of air at the Magnemite. The Magnemite loosed its spark at a random image, but it phased through, and the air cutter landed uninterrupted. Seven images left, but dealing with that was trivial.

"Shock wave." Another spark, and this one sought out the real Taillow, the one with an electromagnetic field. The Taillow cried out and staggered in midair; its images blinked out as it beat its wings furiously to catch itself. If that was the best his challenger had to offer, then the fight was as good as over. Insulting that they'd made him waste his time on this, but at least he'd get back to the office with a few extra precious minutes. He could start working out a plan for the Board of Conservation—

"Supersonic! Like we practiced!" Oh, for fuck's sake. Jin clapped his hands over his ears, but he might as well have done nothing. The ringing was trivial compared to the pressure that came with it. He'd had all his gym Pokémon trained to use the move carefully, directed only at their Pokémon opponent, because despite the waivers, parents got very upset when their children came home from a gym battle with hearing damage. His challenger hadn't been so considerate, and the waves bounced everywhere as the Taillow kept flapping its wings. Off the steel floor, the arched ceiling, coming at him from every direction, joining forces with the throbbing in his head to form a frantic dance of sheer agony. He shut his eyes as his vision swam.

"Magnet bomb," he choked out. He had to end this now; he couldn't let the public see him collapse. Above the ringing, there was the grinding of metal on metal as the Magnemite's screws twisted from its body, and then the air fell blessedly silent. Jin gasped and slumped forward, hands falling from his ears to catch himself on the railing. He couldn't see a goddamn thing—it was all light and pain, and every time he moved his eyes, his body seized up and tried to hurl. He could hear, at least, a fleshy smack and a cry of pain as the Magnemite's screws hit their target again. "Keep going," he said. He had to compose himself, and he had to do it fast. He couldn't shut his eyes again. The cameras would hate that. Focus. Think. In five minutes he would be back in his office. He would turn off the lights. He would think of a plan for the Board of Conservation. What was the name of the man who led them, again? He was so bad at names. And now someone was screaming. Why wouldn't they stop? Why had Wattson built his arena to be so damn bright—

"Leader Jin!" A new voice, at his side. Another gods-damned League trainer. Why wouldn't they stop interrupting him? Didn't they realize he was working?

"Go away," he said, still focusing with all his might on a bright point of nothing. If he turned his head, that would be it.

"Jin, you need to stop—stop the fight!" The first part was spoken, the second shouted, and then the buzzer sounded again. Jin's knees buckled, and he gripped the railing for all he was worth. He had to stay standing. Couldn't let them see him fall. A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he grimaced, shrank away. Someone was still screaming. He had to get back to his office, he remembered. Had to shut off the lights. Had to contact the Board of Conservation. Had to remember their leader's name…

It would be another hour before his vision cleared and he could see what the rest of them saw, and by then, the images and videos would already have leaked. A challenger's Taillow, dead on the ground, wings broken and breast flayed open, as Mauville's steel-hearted gym leader stood by and watched it happen.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

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

"Play it again," Miriam said. Silently, Chad slid the timer back by thirty seconds, undoing the carnage on the screen. Hayley shuddered and looked away. So did Caleb. Kei, sitting at the far end of the table, had already fixed her gaze on the ground, and now she covered her ears as well. Only Miriam, Chad, and Howie kept their eyes on the screen as the ringing, scraping, and screaming played from the laptop's speakers once more.

"Wait, a couple seconds back." Out of the periphery of her vision, Hayley saw Miriam shoulder Chad out of the way and reach for the keyboard herself. "Did he seriously—"

"Stop playing it!" Kei burst out, voice choked. "You've seen it like five times already, so just stop, okay?" Miriam seemed ready to ignore her, but before she could start up the video again, Howie reached out and wordlessly shut the lid of the laptop.

All the Pecha Lane Middle School students currently on Dewford, with the exception of Melinda, were gathered at the outdoor tables of the shake shop. Howie had been excused from his ranger duties, Kei had cut her swimming session short, and even Miriam had braved the midday sun to watch the video that had made it to every corner of the internet. None of them were looking at each other; with the laptop closed, each of them stared into a different point of space, sickeningly silent.

Chad, finally, was the one who spoke up again. "It had to have been an accident. He wouldn't have done that on purpose, right?"

"I don't know if he even saw it happen," Hayley whispered past the lump in her throat. "It didn't look like he was watching the battle."

"He was looking right at it!" With the video playback over, Kei had gone back to hugging Meriel. She was the only one with a Pokémon out—Hayley had half-broken her promise by dropping Barrett and Ceres off at the Pokémon center for healing, even though they hadn't needed it. She hadn't wanted them to see the video or hear them talking about it. Caleb was holding both his Pokéballs in his hand, but just stared at them, ashen-faced.

"He was looking at it, but he seemed kind of zoned out," Hayley said. It was hard to tell for sure, though. The cameras had never gotten a clear shot of his face.

Miriam scoffed. "So gym leaders don't have to pay attention and can let their Pokémon do whatever they want, but if I let Yuna bite a little too hard, I'll get disqualified? Bullshit."

"He can't let his Pokémon do whatever they want," Howie said, voice unusually low. "That's why they stopped the match."

"Yeah, but is he even going to get in trouble for it? I bet he doesn't. That's why they make you sign those papers, so you can't even sue." Nobody had an answer to that. Satisfied, Miriam folded her arms. "You got that from us, by the way. The no-suing thing. I looked it up, and Kanto came up with it first."

With his laptop out of play, Chad was back to scrolling on his phone. Abruptly, he lifted a hand in the air, calling everyone's attention to him. "New article from HNN. They've got a source inside the gym saying it might have been some kind of mental breakdown."

Miriam snorted. "What the fuck."

"It's the right time of year for it," Howie pointed out. "Summer months are crazy, and he's been getting even more challengers than usual."

"So? I battle plenty of people every day, and I don't have a breakdown."

"It's different for leaders—"

"Why, because they get paid to do it? Yeah, that's so hard for them."

"This is going to screw up my plans," Chad said, more or less to himself. "I was going to get the Beam Badge next, but if they make him take a break or something… I might have to do Norman instead." He glanced at Caleb. "Are you good with that?"

Before Caleb could answer, Kei's head shot up. "You're still going to get more badges? Even after that?"

"Well, yeah." Chad sounded taken aback, as though it had never been in question. "It was a freak accident, it's probably not going to happen again. If anything, they'll make the gyms safer now."

"But what if it does happen again? What if Kaden dies? What if Nolan dies?" She hugged Meriel tighter until the Marill gave a distressed squeak.

"They won't," Chad said. "They're tough. I raised them to be tough."

"Corbin raised Ardor to be tough—"

"No, he didn't." Six heads turned in unison as a new person strolled onto the scene. Melinda. Hayley's shoulders stiffened, but Melinda ignored her completely. "His Taillow was never going to be a good fighter. She had the wrong temperament and the wrong genes. I told him that, and you said it was rude, but look where we are now."

Hayley opened her mouth, but stopped as she noticed the two Pokémon at Melinda's feet. Taro, her Bagon—and a Riolu. A flood of envy and anger and disgust washed through Hayley with such force that she almost whited out. Of course she'd found one of the few rare Riolu hiding in Granite Cave, and of course she'd convinced it to join her team. She was Melinda, and only the rarest and strongest Pokémon would do. Like its trainer, the Riolu paid her no attention, merely sticking its nose further in the air.

"Any Pokémon can be strong," Kei was saying. Melinda laughed, and Taro mimicked her.

"You really think that? You really think someone has just as good a chance at being Champion with some Poochyena they found in their backyard as they do with a Pokémon that was bred and raised to fight?" Her eyes fixed on Caleb. "Ask him how that's working out."

"Hey." Chad's eyes narrowed, and he strode up to Melinda, standing an inch away from her face. "That's enough—"

"She's right," Caleb said. It was the first thing Hayley had heard him say all day. He didn't take his eyes from his Pokéballs as he continued: "Argus… He isn't a fighter. He wanted to be, but he hates getting hurt. And I know he's afraid of what's going to happen when we keep fighting stronger and stronger trainers."

"Okay, but once he evolves—"

"I don't think he wants to evolve." He glanced up, caught Chad's eye for a moment, then turned away again. "He likes being small—he likes being able to play as hard as he wants without hurting anyone. So, she's right. Some Pokémon just aren't fighters."

Melinda nodded in satisfaction. "And some people just aren't trainers. I can pick out both. It's in my blood."

"Bullshit," Miriam said. "You just want to pretend you're better than everyone else." Melinda's lip curled upward.

"I'm better than you, at least."

"Just get out of here, okay? Go." Chad looked seconds away from physically shoving Melinda. Her Bagon and Riolu dropped into ready positions, but Melinda waved them off.

"Fine. I'm wasting my time here anyway. You all know I'm telling the truth, but you don't want to hear it."

She left, and they all fell into awkward silence again. Eventually, Chad looked at Caleb and said, "Don't listen to her, okay? She's an idiot."

"No. She's right." Caleb stuffed his Pokéballs into his pocket and shook his head. "I wanted to think I could do this with Argus, but I just… can't. And now I don't know what to do."

He sounded almost resentful. Hayley wanted to judge him for it, but at the same time, she remembered the moment she'd adopted Ceres. She'd said that Ceres wouldn't have to be a fighter, but she'd been so hopeful that she would be. What if she hadn't? What if she'd never ended up wanting to battle? Hayley would have still taken care of her, because she'd promised to. But how would it have felt to raise her and spend so much time with her while knowing she could never fill a spot on her team?

"I think I'm done," Caleb finally said. He had the tone of someone who was accepting being placed on death row. "Not done forever, but—I might as well go back to school for a while. Train up Atlus, see if I can make him into a real fighter. Find a new Pokémon to take Argus' place."

"Are you trading him away?" Hayley asked, unable to disguise the note of alarm in her voice. Trading Pokémon was normal, but ever since Barrett, she couldn't help but see it as something that broke a Pokémon irreparably. Chad just shrugged.

"Dunno. I can't give him to another trainer if he doesn't battle, and he's not going to make a good guard dog or tracker if he doesn't evolve. Maybe my parents will keep him. I'm not sure."

"I'm stopping here too," Kei said in a small voice. She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Meriel again. "I've got the three Pokémon I need for the Pokéathlon, and—maybe I'll find a way in that doesn't need badges. If we break some records, or something. But I can't fight Brawly again. Not after that."

Hayley's class was falling apart around her. The statistic rang in her mind: fifty-six percent. Fifty-six percent of new trainers quit within the first three months. It had been her and seventeen other classmates setting out to travel in June, and just over half of that was ten people. They were at two and a half months, and so far it was Gavin, and Kei, and Caleb, and probably Corbin who were quitting. That meant six more of them might give up in the next two weeks, and—that wasn't going to happen, was it? Just because the numbers said it might happen—

Chad's phone chimed, and he looked at it and sighed. "Campbell says he's out. He's going back to Petalburg in a couple days."

Five left. Hayley desperately hoped she wouldn't be one of them.

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

Hayley had never seen Connie in actual distress. No matter how anxious or upset Hayley ever got, Connie would keep a smile on her face and assure her that everything would be fine—and even when she could tell that Connie was lying, it made her feel better. Now, though, Connie's face was grim, and though Hayley didn't have Connie's gift for reading emotions, it only took her a second to examine the situation and guess why.

"Where's Marcie?" On the phone screen, Connie's lips tightened. It had been the wrong thing to ask.

"She's in her ball for a while. She…" Connie glanced away as she casted around for words, which alarmed Hayley even more. She'd never seen her distressed, and she'd definitely never seen her speechless. "She got a little freaked out. When I watched the video, I… I think I made her upset. Because I got upset."

"Oh," Hayley said, and bit her lip. "Has that… happened before?"

Connie shook her head. "No. You're not ever supposed to feel bad things around a Ralts, because it might warp them, or drive them away. That's what the breeder said. And I'd been doing really well at that, but I just forgot, and now I might've messed her up forever."

"I'm sure you didn't," Hayley said, a little too quickly. "I mean, if getting upset one time could do it, then nobody would ever be able to raise a Ralts. Right?" Privately, she was imagining all the times she'd gotten frustrated at Barrett, or at Miriam, or at an opposing trainer, or at the world in general while Barrett and Ceres were around to see it. If she tried to raise a Ralts, it would run away the first day.

"That's what Clarissa said. And she said I should call the breeder and ask if I was still worried, but I don't want them to know that I screwed up—"

"You didn't screw up. You can't just be happy all the time forever—"

"I have to be! At least around her, at least until she evolves and gets better control over her empathy. And normally it's easy, but I saw the video and I thought what if that was Marcie, and I just—couldn't stop it. I was picturing her dead, and I know she saw it in my head, and Ralts never forget a feeling, so it's going to be with her forever." She stopped, shut her eyes, and took several long, forced breaths. When she opened her eyes again, she said, "I did that to her. I scarred her."

She hadn't been expecting this conversation. Hell, she'd called Connie with the expectation that Connie would make things feel okay again. But the tables were turned, and Hayley had no idea what to do. "I…" Her voice trailed off, and she swallowed roughly. "I've screwed up with Barrett pretty bad. A few times. And we're still making it work."

She still hadn't told Connie about what had happened in Petalburg Woods. She hadn't told anyone. But she would have confessed it all now, if Connie had asked her to. Connie, though, didn't ask. Instead, she said, "You're allowed to screw up."

"…What?"

"You're allowed to screw up," Connie said again, and there was the same edge to her voice that crept in whenever she did badly at a contest. "I can't—I can't screw up. It's different for me. Okay?"

"Why is it different for you?" But then there was a beep, and the call dropped. Hayley tried to call her back, but it went straight to voicemail. Ten minutes later, she got a series of texts one after the other:

"sry phone died"

"think ciel stole my chrgr. lol"

"ill talk to marcie ltr. but ur right. its fine"

"thx"

Things definitely weren't fine. But if she pressed, Hayley knew she would only make it worse. In the end, she decided to let it drop. Her gym battle with Brawly was coming up—if she won, she would be in Slateport in just over a week, and she could talk to Connie then. Once they were face to face, they could have a real conversation.