Twenty minutes before the ferry arrived to pick them up from Dewford, Hayley and Miriam had a fight. It had started with Miriam saying, "I don't get why you want to hang out with those preps, anyway."

"They're not preps," Hayley had shot back. "Connie's my friend."

"Okay, fine, but what about the others? Especially that bitch, Clarissa—"

"Clarissa's partnered with Connie. It'd be rude for Connie not to invite her."

"And Addison and Skye?" Miriam had spat their names like they were poison.

"They're Clarissa's friends. So she has to invite them."

Miriam had scoffed. "So if this whole thing is because of who's partners with who, then shouldn't you be inviting me?"

"I did invite you!" Hayley was on her feet by then, and suddenly, she'd been shouting. "I said you could come do things with us!"

"But you don't want me to come."

"That's not true!"

"Don't fucking lie to me, okay?"

"I'm not lying!"

"Bullshit! You only invited me because you knew I'd say no!"

At that point, Hayley had been fed up, and had snapped, "What is your problem, Miriam? I've been telling you since last month I was going to meet up with Connie after Dewford, and you didn't say anything! Why are you yelling about it now?"

"Like it would have made a difference if I had said anything," Miriam had muttered.

"You're not making any sense!"

"Because you're an idiot!"

"I'm not an idiot!"

"Yes you are!" At that point, Miriam had stood up, and dipped her chin, and glowered at Hayley as forcefully as she had during their first weeks in Rustboro. "So go hang out with your idiot friends, and don't pretend you want me there, okay?"

"Fine! If you're going to be like this, then I don't want you there!"

And at that point, Miriam had thrown up her hands and said, "See?" And then she'd turned her back on Hayley and walked to the other edge of the dock, and they hadn't said a word to each other since.

It felt like it had come out of nowhere. Maybe it hadn't. Miriam was always mad about something, though, so if she'd been a little quiet and glare-y when Hayley had mentioned reuniting with Connie in Slateport, how was she supposed to know that it was because of… whatever this was? Miriam could have just said something, and—

Why did Hayley have to care about keeping Miriam happy, anyway? Miriam had never once tried to make her happy. She'd fought on her behalf, sure, in the tunnels under Rustboro, and she'd gotten upset when she'd thought Hayley might have died in Granite Cave. But outside of life and death situations, she'd never acted like a friend. She'd never even acted like she liked her. So if she wanted to run off and sulk and be miserable now, Hayley decided, it wasn't her job to stop her. She'd been looking forward to seeing Connie again for three months. Miriam was not going to ruin this for her.

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Hayley and Miriam continued not to speak for the entire ferry ride over, but that didn't mean Hayley took the trip alone. Because, as it turned out, Sen knew how to release himself from his Pokéball. It was a fun surprise for Hayley, and for the people standing next to her on the ferry, when the Meditite materialized unprompted on the deck.

"Uh. Sen," Hayley stammered, as a few of the other passengers raised their eyebrows and shook their heads. "Is everything okay?" Sen ignored her and leapt onto the top of the railing, making Hayley's heart jump into her throat, but he stuck the landing and balanced on top of the narrow, slippery steel beam as easily as if he was standing on a sidewalk. "I don't think you're allowed to be out here," she tried again.

Then again, despite the "ALL POKÉMON MUST BE KEPT IN BALLS" signs plastered every two feet, one boy had his Zigzagoon out, and another girl was holding a Minun. Hayley had figured they'd somehow gotten special permission, but… Maybe the people running the ferry just didn't care, as long as you didn't cause trouble? Pulse still pounding, glancing furtively around to see if anyone was going to snitch, Hayley moved to lean on the railing beside Sen.

"Have you been on a boat before?" Sen didn't answer. He was staring, mesmerized, at the glittering water below. Hayley took it as a "no." "You've probably seen plenty of them, though, so you know what they are. We're going there—" she pointed northeast, towards a distant smudge on the horizon—"to Slateport City. We're going to meet up with my friend, and train, and find plenty of strong trainers to fight." After a pause, she added, "Have you ever been to a city before? Or left Dewford at all?"

Still, Sen was quiet. He'd torn his eyes from the water, and now stared in the direction of Slateport City. The blazing sun caught his eyes, and Hayley saw them glinting green. Foresight. He was scoping out where they were heading.

"It might be a lot at first," Hayley continued, despite the distinct impression that she was talking to herself. "But I think you'll like it. We'll meet Pokémon you've never even seen before, and you'll get to fight in an arena. It'll be fun—you'll see."

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Slateport City was, indeed, a lot. The whole of Rustboro was bigger than the whole of Slateport, but Slateport's docks had more people than Hayley had ever seen in one place. The ferry station was dwarfed by the massive berths of sleek white cruise ships stretching off to the left and the dockyards crammed with warehouse, cranes, and container ships to the right. The summer was drawing to a close, but the warm climate of southern Hoenn meant that tourist season was still in full swing, and vacationers crowded in alongside dockworkers and traveling trainers. The streets directly in front of Hayley were crammed with boxy travel agencies and information centers and shipping depots, and beyond that, high-rise hotels and shopping malls blotted out the sky. Hayley's hand went protectively to the Pokéballs on her belt—Sen was already out, so she'd just have to trust he wouldn't get lost, but she wasn't going to let Barrett or Ceres out in this mess. If Barrett ran off here, she'd never find him again, and Ceres… Ceres would probably just get stepped on.

Sen, for his part, was visibly on edge. His shoulders were squared as he swiveled his head to take in every person and Pokémon there. Hayley kept a close eye on him, particularly when his gaze lingered on a crew of Machoke hauling around cargo, but he didn't make any move to attack. He was just observing.

Hayley wondered how she was going to find Connie in all of this. The answer to that was that Connie found them—and so did Clarissa, Addison, and Skye. Hayley heard her name being shouted over and over, and after she'd spun around half a dozen times searching for the source, she saw a waving hand above the crowd. It was Connie's hand—she was still wearing her half of the friendship bracelet she'd given Hayley before they left. The crowd briefly parted, and they made eye contact, and before Hayley could even wave back, Connie rushed forward and wrapped her up in one of her trademark bone-crushing hugs.

"I missed you!" she shouted, and Hayley, through constricted lungs, managed to choke out "I missed you too." When Connie finally pulled back, Hayley took a moment to look her over. Her beaming smile was the same as it had been three months ago, but other things had changed. She'd seen Connie's experiments with makeup during their video calls, but in person and up close, the effect was way more drastic. Her eyes were ringed with smoky eyeliner and green eyeshadow, which, combined with her ditching her glasses for contacts, made her eyes look twice as big as usual. Her face as a whole was smoothed out and had taken on a subtly different shape—"contouring," she'd tried to explain once, but Hayley hadn't really understood. Her long hair hung shining and pin-straight down her back, and she was wearing a pleated skirt and sleeveless bouse that Hayley had never seen her in before. She looked three years older than she had when they'd parted in Petalburg, not three months.

Of course, Clarissa, Addison, and Skye were equally glamorous. Clarissa wore a halter top and crisply pressed capris, and her blonde curls were pinned in a hairstyle that looked like it had taken hours to assemble. Addison donned a lacy sundress that contrasted beautifully with her dark hair and olive skin, and Skye wore a t-shirt, cropped jacket, and cutoff jean shorts that probably cost more than Hayley's entire wardrobe. Hayley felt severely underdressed, but her discomfort was nothing compared to Miriam. Walking a few steps behind Hayley, there was a several-inch bubble of personal space around her that the crowd didn't dare encroach on—the vibes of hatred radiating off her were just that strong. Despite her promise to herself, Hayley tried one more time. "Miriam. Do you want—"

"I'm going to get a Porygon," she said, and stomped off towards the city proper. Hayley saw a billboard in the direction she was heading that did, in fact, have a Porygon emblazoned on it. It read "LUCKY LAIRON GAME CORNER – 1,000C SIGNUP BONUS FOR FIRST TIME PLAYERS".

"Awk-ward," Hayley heard Skye call out in a singsong voice. Addison snickered. Over Hayley's shoulder, Connie was still watching Miriam go.

"What's her problem?" she asked, echoing Hayley's own thoughts at the ferry station. Hayley sighed.

"I don't know. She's just being Miriam, I guess."

"A shame you had to get stuck with her," Addison said. "They really need to adjust the system to let people pick their own partners. Not everyone can get as lucky as Skye and myself."

"Yeah," Hayley said. It went politely unmentioned that Connie and Clarissa had been just as upset to be paired together as Hayley and Miriam had. Neither of them, though, was currently radiating the hate that Miriam had been, or the frustration that Hayley felt.

Clarissa took out her phone. "I suppose I'll be informing the restaurant that our dinner reservation will be for five, then, not six?"

"I mean, she might…" If Miriam changed her mind and came back, only to find out that she wasn't invited to dinner, she'd get mad all over again. Ugh, who was Hayley kidding? She wasn't coming back. "Yeah. Five people."

"Her loss," Addison said. "This place is the best spot to get Kalosian food in all of Hoenn."

"I still think Didiane's in Lilycove is better," Skye said, prompting Addison to roll her eyes.

"You've never ever been to Kalos, you wouldn't know—"

"I've updated the reservation," Clarissa interrupted, and slipped her phone back into her purse. "We have two and a half hours before we need to arrive. In the meantime, Skye, I believe you and Connie both wanted to have a battle with Hayley?"

Skye pouted. "Oh, come on, I wanted to say it—I guess I still can." She cleared her throat, flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, and pointed a dramatic finger at Hayley. "Hayley Summers! You're a trainer, and I challenge you to a battle!"

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By the time they'd caught a trolley and made it to the arena, the matchups had been figured out. Connie, Clarissa, Skye, and Addison all had one Pokémon to Hayley's total of three, though Addison didn't want to battle, which made the numbers even. Actually, Clarissa had been reluctant as well, but after both Skye and Connie egged her on, she relented. "I don't want to fight your Magby, though," she told Hayley. "He's a brute, and I don't want to go into this week's contest with Ciel half-melted."

"I'll fight her Magby!" Skye volunteered. "I want to see what he can do against Sherbert."

"I call Ceres, then," Connie said. "She's so cute, and I need a video of her battling Marcie."

Clarissa sighed. "I suppose that leaves me with your Meditite?" Sen, thankfully, had been recalled for the trolley ride down, so Hayley could speak freely.

"Only if you want. I just caught him today and haven't battled with him yet, so I can't give him orders or anything. He's going to fight however he wants to."

Clarissa thought this over for a while, then said, "Fine. But if he gets too rough, I'm recalling Ciel. I'm not putting my performance at risk."

The arena they arrived at was a massive complex with both indoor and outdoor stadiums. Skye had apparently paid to rent out one of the quarter-sized plots in the outdoor section, because when the attendant led them to it, it was cordoned off and empty. Hayley let out her team and explained the upcoming battle rotation, while her opponents did the same. Since Addison wasn't battling, she took Nacho, her Swirlix, in her arms and went to sit down in a chair on the sidelines. Clarissa and her Snorunt joined her to wait for their turn, while Connie scooped up Marcie and ran to the sidelines to ref and Hayley and Skye took their positions. The first round was Barrett versus Sherbert, and Barrett was already raring to go.

Sherbert was an exceptionally well-groomed Skitty. Skye had shown her off at school before, and Hayley remembered her as being small, but she'd grown over the past few months just like Barrett had, and her eyes were level with his chest. She bent into a crouch, muscles rippling under her shiny fur, tail twitching back and forth. She looked cute, but Hayley could tell she was a threat. Barrett realized so, too, and his eyes narrowed as he took a ready stance.

"Sherbert versus Barrett!" Connie raised the hand not currently occupied with holding Marcie, then sliced it down through the air. "Go!"

"Smog!"

"Double team!"

Barrett lunged forward and spewed a cloud of smoke, but Sherbert backflipped away, and by the time she landed, there were eight of her. All eight encircled Barrett and opened their mouths in identical, adorable yowls.

"Swift!"

"Hold position!" Hayley held her breath and waited. All eight of Sherbert's tails swirled, shedding hairs that flickered and burst into star-shaped lights. Then each of the Skitty turned around, putting their backs to Barrett, and whipped their tails to release the stars. Now—

"F-dodge!" Just before the stars hit, Barrett vanished into smoke. The stars all hit the ground, but there was only one explosion, not eight. Hayley's eyes weren't quick enough to figure out which Sherbert had launched the real one, and anyway, the Skitty were all on the move again. But Barrett had other tricks up his sleeve.

"Ember, strafe!" As all the Skitty swung their tails for a second round, Barrett began to run, going down the line of copies and spitting embers as he went. Three Skitty stuttered and disappeared before the fourth one, the real Sherbert, cried out in pain. The moment she did, Barrett closed in and socked her with a lunge punch, knocking her over. He raised his arms for a cross chop, but before he could complete the move, Sherbert wailed again, and this time the sound came with a shimmering pink shockwave that sent Barrett staggering back.

"Great job! Now dig and split!"

"Grab her!" Barrett was too slow; Sherbert slipped through his claws. She pawed at the ground, dislodging heaps of clay faster than should have been possible, and slipped underground. Barrett ran after her, but the hole she'd left was already blocked with more loose clay.

This was a problem. Hayley knew from Connie that Skye's favorite techniques were double team and substitute—in just moments, Barrett was going to be facing a tag-team. "Fire shield. There's two of them now, so get ready!"

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Barrett huffed out ribbons of fire and began weaving them into a protective shell. It was half-complete when the ground rippled underneath him and Sherbert burst out. Barrett stumbled back, but couldn't avoid a hit to the stomach that knocked him off his feet. Seconds later, an identical Sherbert burst out of the hole with a swift star already in her tail. She launched it at Barrett, and through the veil of flames, Hayley couldn't see how serious the hit had been.

"Flame wheel! Pin the one closest to you!" That Skitty almost certainly wasn't the "real" one; Hayley couldn't imagine Sherbert would throw the battle by kamikazeing right into a ball of flames. But they needed to turn this back into a one-on-one, and if that was the copy, it would go down quickly. Sure enough, the moment Barrett leapt up and tackled it, it shrieked and disappeared into mist. Meanwhile, Skye had called for another swift, and by the time Barrett had finished with the copy, Sherbert had three stars circling her tail. Hayley grimaced. "Intercept!"

Barrett sent his flames wobbling towards Sherbert at the same moment Sherbert released her stars. The two attacks collided, and the swift stars burst—but they took the bulk of the flames with them.

"Finish it! Wild charge!" Static electricity sparked in Sherbert's fur. She leapt forward, and the sparks blossomed into a coat of lightning. Barrett didn't have time to pull up more fire—they could probably dodge, but should they? Barrett could tank one more hit. And they could use Sherbert's momentum against her.

Hayley made her decision. "Cross chop, straight on!" In the split-second delay where Hayley had been thinking, Barrett had already raised his arms, having come to the same conclusion on his own. As Sherbert approached, he planted his feet and stared at her with total concentration. The instant before she made contact, he brought the edges of his hands down directly on her skull and shouted a kiai. Electricity leapt onto his body and gave him a nasty shock, but he was used to shocks from fighting with Xena. Sherbert, evidently, was not used to cross chops to the head. Sherbert swayed and fell over, and Skye recalled her. Connie raised her hand again to declare Hayley the winner.

Skye immediately ran across the battlefield to Hayley. For someone who had just lost a battle, she looked positively giddy. "That was so cool!" she gushed. "Barrett's just as brutal as everyone says."

"Um. Thanks? I mean, he's not too brutal, I hope." At her feet, Barrett snorted, and Skye beamed.

"Brutal in a good way. He's just like Sherry—cool, cute, and tough. Have you ever thought about entering him in contests? He'd need some conditioning, but I bet he'd do great."

"Contests aren't really my thing," Hayley said, scratching the back of her neck. Internally, she was still reeling from the line "just as brutal as everyone says." Had Connie talked about Barrett that much? Or were other people talking about her too? She knew that her gym battles had been televised and all, but—

"I'll go next," Clarissa said, standing up and dusting imaginary dirt from her lap. "I want to get this over with."

"Do you want me to film?" Addison asked, already pulling a small camcorder from her purse. Clarissa shook her head.

"Against a half-wild Meditite? No. I'm probably going to lose, and he'll look terrible on camera."

Hayley bristled at the description of Sen as half-wild, but Clarissa had a point about his appearance. Ciel was, put simply, gorgeous to look at. Her subtle sheen—the phenomenon that gave "shiny" Pokémon their name—had grown more pronounced than when Hayley had last seen her, and she practically glimmered in the afternoon sun. Sen, by comparison, looked as veiny and strung-out as ever, with lingering grime caked in the folds of his joints and bruises and cuts marring every inch of skin. Hayley winced as she realized that, removed from his natural environment, Sen really did look awful. Maybe she could at least convince him to bathe or something, so people wouldn't think she was neglecting him or worse.

That was a conversation for later. For now, they had to get through their first battle. Hayley looked down to address him—not bending down on her knees, because she sensed he'd hate that. "This is going to be your first trainer battle. It'll be like the battle you had with Barrett earlier today—you'll want to knock your opponent out, but not hurt them too badly. It's just a test of strength, not something life-and-death. Okay?" Sen nodded slowly. His eyes were fixed on Ciel, who had already hopped onto the field and was shivering in excitement.

"I want to learn more about how you fight," Hayley continued. "I've seen you fight Barrett plenty of times, and I watched you fight that Graveler once, but I want some more examples. So, for now, I'm not going to tell you what moves to use—I'll just give you advice, and you can decide what to do." It was the same strategy she'd used on Barrett when they were getting to know each other, and she figured it would work for Sen too. "Snorunt are ice-types, so she's probably going to try to freeze you or cut you from a distance with ice. She might bite you if you get close, too, so you might want to stay behind her. Got it?"

Sen nodded again, then stepped onto the field. He extended one arm and one leg, drawing the others behind him, and took in a deep breath. Ciel hopped in place and shivered again, scattering ice onto the field.

"Ciel versus Sen!" Once again, Connie raised her hand and then brought it down. "Go!"

"Hail," Clarissa said. Ciel spread her feet apart and grunted, and dark clouds began to swirl over the battlefield. Barrett would have used this opportunity to rush in and attack, but Sen stood perfectly still, even as hail began to fall and a chunk of ice struck him on the face. At the level, hail was more a nuisance than a hazard, so Hayley supposed he could afford to wait, to observe—and to charge up a move of his own. His right hand flickered with a blue spark of aura, and then he was on the move, bounding towards Ciel with steps that barely touched the ground. Ciel gave a yelp that sounded like crackling ice and jumped to the side as Sen thrust his force palm forward, barely avoiding the hit.

"Double team," Clarissa ordered, and Hayley almost groaned. What was it with contesters and double team? Ciel shuddered, and more copies of her appeared. Sen didn't even blink—he just readied another force palm, charged towards one of the copies on the side, and struck it with all his might. Ciel wailed and tumbled backwards, and all her duplicates disappeared. Sen must have been able to sense the real one.

"Hmph. Ice shard." As Ciel climbed back to her feet, pebbles of hail began circulating around her. They sharpened and suspended themselves, glittering, in the air, before rushing at Sen. Sen was bent over and breathing heavily from having used two force palms in such quick succession, and the blades of ice cut into him before he could even try to block or dodge. Cuts bloomed all over his skin, and Hayley held her breath, but Sen wasn't finished yet. He crossed his arms over his face and raced straight towards Ciel, through the barrage still coming his way. Just before he reached her, he threw out his hands and unleashed a psychokinetic blast that stopped Ciel's assault and sent her rolling across the arena again. Ciel staggered upright once more, slower this time, as Sen began readying yet another force palm.

Clarissa clicked her tongue. "Protect."

The light around Ciel refracted and began to coalesce around her. Unlike most protect barriers, which formed nebulous shapes or repeating geometric patterns, Ciel's barrier was a fractal. Small and large fragments of light interlinked themselves, spiraling outwards in a way that reminded Hayley of a snowflake under a microscope. But while the form was there, the function wasn't. Sen's palm impacted the shield with a crack that echoed through the air, and the pretty fractals shattered. What was left of his attack struck Ciel in her unarmored face, and her entire body crumpled and sagged as she toppled over. The clouds above the field began to dissipate, and the hail stopped falling. She was out for the count.

"Predictable," Clarissa muttered, producing Ciel's ball and recalling her in one graceful motion. "Had this been a contest field, of course, I would have dominated you."

"I'm sure," Hayley said, because agreeing was just easier. Sen strode back to her, looking unimpressed despite the cuts bleeding all over his body. "You did great," she said to him, "but there are a few things I think we can work on. If you get better at telekinesis, you'll be able to block or reflect attacks like her ice shard, instead of just letting them hit you. And using force palm over and over again is predictable—it might work against wild Pokémon, but against trainers, you'll want to mix up your attack pattern."

Sen stared at her for a long moment, judging, but eventually gave her a small nod. He'd found no flaws in her reasoning—thank Arceus. "Do you want me to heal your cuts?" He shook his head, and Hayley didn't push the matter. The cuts looked small enough to heal on their own, and she'd already given him medical care against his will once today.

Finally, it was Connie's turn to battle. Hayley had been waiting for this battle for three months, but she nevertheless had a bad feeling about it—Marcie was an awful matchup for Ceres. The dread only intensified when Connie waved Addison over. "Film this, okay? I want to put it on my channel."

"Um, I don't really want to be on camera," Hayley said. It was stupid, given how many times she'd been filmed in gyms already, but something about being recorded for a candid, friendly battle hit differently. Connie, already setting up a camera of her own on a tripod beside her, waved her concerns away.

"You'll barely be in frame. And you could do with the exposure, anyway." She darted onto the field, then went back to the camera, checked something on the screen, and nodded. "All set. Skye, do you want to ref?"

"Sure!" Skye ran to the sidelines and raised a hand. "This is a one on one battle between—"

"Oh my god, don't do the whole thing, you are such a dork," Addison grumbled, pinching her nose behind the camera. Skye raised her voice to talk over her.

"—between Hayley Summers and Connie Harper! There will be no substitutions—"

"Obviously, because it's a one on one battle, you nerd—"

"—and standard League rules are in place! Trainers, send out your Pokémon!"

Ceres and Marcie walked onto the field. Just like the previous matches, it was jarring to see the difference between a contest and non-contest Pokémon. Despite the fact that Ceres was groomed and clean, she looked shabby and practically unwell next to Marcie. Her pink skin, bruised like an old apple after their fight against Brawly, was ugly and mottled against Marcie's vibrant green and pristine white. Even her confidence seemed wavering and unsure next to Marcie's composure. Over the past three months, Hayley had watched through her phone as Marcie grew in strength and self-assurance, and now, despite the audience, the Ralts no longer trembled. Her head was bowed, but not in fear—she was a dancer, waiting for the opening notes of her song.

"Begin!"

With the cue given, Connie started the score. "Misty terrain."

That was exactly the move Hayley had been dreading. She clenched her fists. "You can't yawn, Ceres. Use headbutt."

Marcie tilted her head back, lifted the hems of her skirt, and twirled. Pink mist billowed from under the fabric, shrouding her in a protective fog. Ceres bellowed and charged forward, but by the time she reached Marcie, the fog had already spread—it was too late to interrupt her. Marcie nimbly leapt away from Ceres' attack and let out a haunting cry. The mist in front of her rippled, and Ceres winced. Disarming voice, the second reason this matchup was bad—unlike physical damage, emotional damage didn't take time for Ceres to process.

"Water gun! Blow the mist away!"

"Disable." And there was the third reason. Marcie's horn glowed, and Ceres' stream of water faltered and died. It took several seconds for her to realize that her attack was no longer working, and in that time, Marcie danced away further into the mist.

They were down to their physical moves. "Headbutt again!" But Ceres, still baffled by the loss of her water, simply stood there, blinking. After a moment, she opened her mouth and let out a confused yawn. "Yawn won't work! Use headbutt!"

Connie was barely holding her face steady. Hayley could see the corners of her mouth already twitching in triumph. "Magical leaf!" Silken threads pulled free of Marcie's dress and wove themselves together, forming the outlines of tiny maple leaves shot through with veins. They circled around Marcie for a moment, fluorescing indigo and green, and then they straightened and flew towards Ceres.

"Guard!" Hayley shouted. That command, at least, got through, and Ceres stiffened, but it was no use. The leaves didn't explode like Sherbert's swift stars, or cut like Ciel's ice shards, but simply glowed and sapped the color from whatever patch of skin they struck, draining Ceres' strength directly. Each only lasted a moment before fading, but the effect adding up quickly, and in less than ten seconds, Ceres had slumped to the ground. Hayley sighed. This was useless; there was no way they were going to win.

"I forfeit," she said, and the giddy smile at last broke free on Connie's face.

"Yes! We beat you! I knew we could do it!" As the mist and leaves disappeared, she ran onto the field and scooped up Marcie. "You see? We beat her!"

Ceres was looking between Connie and Hayley in vague distress, so Hayley also went onto the field and stroked her head and back. "It's okay, you did a good job. Psychics are tough to fight. Marcie's going to teach you some of her tricks this week, and then you'll be able to do some of what she does, all right?" Doubt clouded Ceres' eyes, which made Hayley's heart hurt. It had been a while since Ceres had lost a battle that badly.

"Okay, battling's over," Addison called out, interrupting both Hayley and Connie. "Can we go somewhere indoors now? I'm going to ruin this dress with how much I'm sweating."

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The restaurant was… fine, Hayley supposed. She definitely didn't feel fancy enough to eat there; sure, there were other people in jeans and t-shirts, but they still looked like they belonged in a way that Hayley didn't. She didn't know what most of the food on the menu was, so had to listen to Addison explain every single dish as Clarissa grew more and more visibly exasperated. And it was a human-only restaurant, so she didn't even have her team to act as a buffer for awkward conversation. Conversations like this one:

"I just don't get why you didn't have Ceres use psychics attacks against Brawly," Skye said. "Like, I watched the video, and obviously you won, but wouldn't it have been easier if she used confusion or something?"

"Ceres hasn't figured out psychic attacks yet," Hayley answered. "She's able to use telekinesis a little bit, but not in battle."

"What do you mean, she hasn't figured it out?"

"She… doesn't know how to do it yet." Hayley didn't know how to put it more simply than that.

Skye dropped her head onto her fist. "Huh! But she's a psychic type, right? So she really should know how to do it."

"Some Pokémon struggle with learning certain techniques," Addison said. "You know that, Skye."

"Yeah, I know it, but—it's so weird! Sherbert's never had that much trouble leaning any of the moves I've taught her."

But Skye had taught Sherbert her moves by using TMs, and that was different. Hayley was struggling to decide whether or not she should say that when Connie swooped in.

"Well, I told you all that Ceres is a rescue, right? She wasn't raised to battle, so it makes sense that it takes her longer to learn things."

"That's not—" Hayley was interrupted by Skye speaking again.

"Wow. It's great that you saved her, but I don't know if I could deal with that. The longest it took Sherry to learn a move was wild charge, it took her like a week to stop shocking herself, and at the end of it I was like, oh my gosh, just figure it out already!" She sat back in the booth and laughed.

Hayley frowned. "It's different with TMs," she said, because now she was defending Ceres' honor and didn't care whether she said something rude. Skye didn't take offense—she just shrugged.

"You should have bought her a TM, then."

"I couldn't afford one," Hayley said, and Skye's smile fell.

"Oh. Oh. Right, I'm sorry, I totally forgot—"

Connie broke in again, coming to Hayley's rescue either on purpose or by coincidence. "Okay, enough about training. What I want to know is, what gym are you doing next? Did you decide yet?"

"I'm still not sure," Hayley admitted. Jin had been her original plan for a third badge, but after what had happened with Corbin's Taillow, she felt a little spooked. But fighting Norman instead meant a ton of backtracking, while Flannery and Arabella were at the other end of routes she was still too weak to travel safely, and Juan and Liza and Tate were far out of her way. "I guess it depends on what you want to do too, right? If we're going to travel together?"

The silence that fell over the table was deafening. Somehow, Hayley had said something terribly wrong. At last, as the tension became too much to handle, Connie scrunched up her face and spoke. "Yeah. You know I'm going to have to stick around in Slateport a while longer, right? For probably a month, two tops, before I have the points to make Ultra rank."

"I know that," Hayley hurriedly said. "It'll take me a few weeks before I'm ready for the next badge anyway, so it's fine."

"All right, cool," Connie said, and everyone relaxed a little. "Mauville's super close anyway if you want to do Jin; you can get there and back in a day if you take a bus or the cycling road."

"Or we could stay in Mauville and come back to Slateport for contests," Hayley countered. "Mauville's got a huge battling scene, so I was hoping to spend some time there."

Connie frowned, but then nodded. "Sure, that could work too. Then when I'm ready for Ultra rank, we can go up towards Lavaridge, and Fallarbor after—"

"You're not planning to take the routes up there, right?" Clarissa interjected. Hayley said "yes" at the same time Connie said "no," and the two of them turned to look at each other uncomfortably.

"I thought you were fine with traveling," Hayley said.

"I am! Totally. Just, not on that route. The desert and Jagged Pass are like, a week of no internet access, and I can't drop off the grid that long. But you can take the routes up if you want, and I'll meet you there?"

A knife buried itself in Hayley's stomach. That hadn't been the plan. They were supposed to travel together—to do everything together, even if it was difficult. "You really can't go one week without the internet?" she asked, almost pleading.

Connie looked to Clarissa for guidance, and Clarissa shook her head. Turning back to Hayley, Connie said, "Definitely not. I need to be active every single day, or my videos and posts are going to start getting buried." She slapped one hand over the other to emphasize the point. "But, don't worry, okay? We'll work something out. We've got a month at least before we have to think about it."

Hayley wasn't convinced, but she also didn't want to talk about this anymore. She turned back to her food and nodded. Things went quiet again for a minute, until finally Addison said, "Did you all see that dress Lisia was wearing to the premiere of My Lovely Arcanine? Seriously, if I was her, I would have already fired my stylist." And then the conversation turned to celebrities and fashion, and nobody seemed to notice that Hayley had nothing to say.

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

There was one more painful encounter waiting for her at the end of the night. Hayley and Miriam were still officially partners until the end of this week, and that meant they had to check in to the same room at night. Hayley delayed it as long as she could, shuffling up and down the streets of Slateport long after she would have usually been in bed. All it meant was that when she finally gave in and entered the dorm, Miriam was already there. She was sitting on the top bunk, as usual, headphones over her ears, furiously tapping at her phone. She looked up as Hayley entered, and Hayley gave a tentative wave, but she just scoffed and turned her gaze back to the screen.

She didn't care about Miriam, Hayley reminded herself. Miriam had been the one who'd decided they were having a fight. If she wanted to be a brat, then Hayley would let her.

She went through her nighttime routine, letting out Ceres in the shower and Barrett on his mat nearby. She trusted him enough now that she left the bathroom door ajar at night—not that he cared, to her knowledge, but it felt better to know that she wasn't locking him in. She gave Sen an extremely brief tour and explanation of what the dorm was, then asked where he wanted to sleep. After a moment's deliberation, he simply went to the corner, sat down with his legs crossed, and bowed his head. At least that had been easy enough.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day. Hayley was going back to her Rustboro schedule of battles in the morning, training in the afternoon, and this time, she'd be training with Connie. Connie had seemed happy enough today, but Hayley knew there was still something bothering her, so she'd have to dive into that. And Miriam…

She wasn't going to think about Miriam. And so, purposely not thinking about her, Hayley slipped into her bed and tried to sleep.