Sen was already awake when Hayley got up the next morning. Not surprising, since Ceres had had to sneak out at the crack of dawn to catch him training on Dewford. He was contorted into a completely bizarre pose, doing a handstand with his knees tucked all the way into his triceps, and was so into it that he didn't notice Hayley at all as she snuck past him into the bathroom. She woke Barrett and Ceres with their usual amount of grumbling and yawning, and gently shooed them into the bedroom so she could get changed. "Sen's doing his training," she whispered to both of them. "Don't interrupt him—either of you, or you're not getting any treats today."

Sen had made a huge sacrifice to his routine and way of life to come along with them, and she wanted to respect that by making the transition as easy as possible. For that reason, she brought Barrett and Ceres down to the cafeteria while leaving him to finish. Sen's diet was going to be a whole other challenge to tackle, but for the first week, at least, she was going to let him eat however he wanted. Eventually, she'd have to come up with a plan for how to get him the vitamins and nutrients he needed while sticking to his strict calorie limit.

Really, she needed to start coming up with a diet plan for all her Pokémon. Pellets and berries were a good start, but all the best trainers fed their Pokémon meals and supplements that were customized not only for their species, but for their individual roles in battle. Hayley had started looking into it in Dewford, and had even gotten some websites and book titles to check out from Chad, but the whole thing was both mind-bendingly complicated and ludicrously expensive. If you started giving your Pokémon supplements without knowing what you were doing, you could actually hurt them instead of helping them. Hayley was probably going to have to add in the cost of a nutritionist consult to the cost of the vitamins themselves. Realistically, she wasn't going to be able to afford it until she got the payout from her next gym battle.

She let Barrett and Ceres take their time with breakfast in the hopes that Sen would be finished by the time she got back to the room. He was, but she wasn't sure whether he had actually completed his routine or whether he'd sensed them coming and stopped. Either way, he looked ready to go. She'd promised him lots of battles with lots of strong Pokémon, and it was time for her to deliver.

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Hayley could no longer avoid the trainer arenas. Hanging out around the Pokémon Center practice fields or the town outskirts to find battles was for beginners, and she wasn't a beginner anymore. This was painfully apparent in the opponents her match call pulled up for her to fight—they weren't beginners, either. The jump in experience from zero badges to one badge had been significant, but manageable, since she'd stuck to the casual trainers on Dewford's beaches and had been pretty overleveled by that point anyway. Two-badge arena trainers, though, were a different breed entirely, and Hayley struggled to keep from being steamrolled. It was like fighting Brawly all over again, except this time, she didn't have the advantage of foreknowledge and practice.

But Hayley did eventually find her footing, which surprised even herself. Her new opponents were cocky and really, really good—but she was good, too. This wasn't Rustboro. She knew how to battle, and she had two Pokémon that listened to her and a third willing to at least work with the advice she gave. They were frequently outclassed, but it didn't feel hopeless. She could examine battles clearly, now, and see why she lost and how she might tackle a similar matchup in the future. When a Voltorb faked exploding so that Barrett ran back and expose himself to a thundershock, she realized after the fact that it had looked totally different from a real explosion—next time, she'd know how to spot it. Sen lost badly to a Ninjask, and it reinforced how important it was to knock a speed-boosting Pokémon out of the fight as quickly as possible. Ceres got pecked over and over by a Doduo that refused to go down to yawn, and afterwards, Hayley had facepalmed at the realization that she could have had just had her water gun its legs instead. The mistakes were frustrating, but it was okay—they were learning. They were all learning.

By the time lunch rolled around, Barrett had started to claim victory in just under half of his matchups. His move diversity, close-up style of fighting, and overall viciousness threw other trainers for a loop and gave him an edge. Sen and Ceres, by comparison, won somewhere between one in four and one in three. Sen was close to Barrett in raw strength, but the Pokémon and tactics he faced here were ones he'd never seen before. Hayley tried to warn him both in advance and in real time about the moves coming his way, but verbal instruction was no substitute for personal experience in a fight where every second mattered. As for Ceres, she still lacked power, and bracing herself for hits just wasn't enough to avoid damage from the moves she was facing now. She desperately needed to add disable, confusion, and protect to her movepool, and Hayley had her fingers crossed that working with Marcie would make the process of learning them go smoothly.

There was something else entirely that put Hayley at a disadvantage, too. By the time they had their second gym badge, most trainers had at least one evolved Pokémon on their team, and Hayley had none. Her team was made up of late-bloomers. Knowing exactly when a Pokémon would evolve was a tricky process that involved evaluating both a Pokémon's physical maturity and their biological power level, but based on the averages for their species, Hayley didn't think Ceres and Sen would be ready to evolve until her fifth badge at least. Barrett should statistically be ready around fourth-badge level—but watching him today, seeing the determination and rage on his face every time he faced an evolved Pokémon, she had her suspicions that those statistics might not hold up. She brought it up with Connie while Barrett and Ceres were having their lunchtime checkup at the center.

"I need to start studying for my class twos," she said as an opener, and Connie immediately read her mind.

"You think Barrett's going to evolve?"

"Not just yet," she said hastily. "And don't tell him I think he might, because if I'm wrong, it's going to make him even more frustrated. Based on his biometrics, it'll be a couple more months—but he's old for a Magby, you know? I think he might try to force it at our next gym battle, and I want to be ready if he does."

Magmar were Class II Pokémon and needed an advanced license to train. Hazard levels went from one through four, and the classification could be a little vague, but the rule of thumb went "person, room, building, block." If a Pokémon species was likely to harm a person without even trying, just by existing, it was a Class I, which just meant you needed some form of official license to keep it. If it could easily injure a room full of people, it was a Class II. If it had the strength to damage a small building, it was Class III, and if it had the potential to devastate an entire city block before someone could stop it, it was Class IV. Obviously, this didn't cover everything, and there were all sorts of complications, like a species' temperament or what the class of their later evolutions would be. Dragonite and Salamence had equal destructive power, but Salamence were Class IV while Dragonite were Class III, because only Salamence were likely to go on a rampage. Meanwhile, both Bagon and Dratini were Class I, despite not posing much danger to humans on their own, because they could evolve into Salamence and Dragonite eventually… It was tricky. But the point was, Magmar were Class II, and Hayley's license only qualified her to raise Class I and below. Which meant she had to take another exam.

"You're lucky," Connie sighed. "Marcie's a high enough level to evolve, but she's still too young. The breeder says she needs another couple months to grow."

"I'm not lucky," Hayley retorted. "I have to take another test."

"So? You'll ace it, just like you did the POKE."

"But I've only got a few weeks to study for it." Hayley sighed. "I should've started on Dewford, but I kept putting it off."

Connie grinned. "You worry too much. I'll help you study, okay? It'll be just like Petalburg. I'm busy tonight, though, so—we can start tomorrow?"

"Okay," Hayley said. A small weight lifted off her chest, not just because she was relieved to have Connie helping her, but because Connie sounded as positive and optimistic as she always had. It was comforting. It was right.

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After lunch, they made their way to a practice field, and while their Pokémon had their own lunch, Hayley and Connie worked out their game plan. They settled on starting with protect and (for Hayley) detect, since they had TMs for those moves to help the training along. Hayley beckoned Barrett and Sen over first.

"Take a look at this." She sat down and showed them her phone, which was showing a TrainerTV video of a Hitmonchan using detect again and again to dodge a Hitmonlee's kicks. With each use of the move, his eyes shone, and he threw himself away from his opponent with speed that defied the laws of physics. "It's a move called detect. When you use it, it makes time feel like it's slowed down, and you can see exactly where your opponent's attack is going to hit. It'll let you avoid taking hits and give you the chance to position yourself for a counterattack." The video began playing a new segment, so she rewound it back to the start of the fight. Both Barrett and Sen stared at it, mesmerized. "I've given both of you a technical machine that'll let you use this move, but you'll need to practice a bit to figure out how to pull it off. Sen, it might be easier for you, since your species can learn it naturally and since it works sort of like foresight. Barrett, it'll be harder for you, but think of it a little bit like dodging with feint attack. You want to see where your opponent's attack is going and use that knowledge to get out of the way. Got it?"

Sen and Barrett nodded, Sen confidently, Barrett with a little more hesitation. "Good. I'm sure both of you can do it. To practice, I want you to take turns sparring—punches and kicks only, you're going to be at this a while and I don't want you to hurt each other. One of you will attack the other, and the one who's getting attacked will try to predict and dodge just like the Hitmonchan in the video was doing. If one of you gets the hang of it first, help the other one figure it out. And you can use this time to teach each other some of the punches and kicks you know, too."

They both nodded again, and Barrett looked more sure of himself this time. Good. Hayley was balancing this carefully so that neither Barrett nor Sen would spend this session dominating each other. Sen would almost certainly be able to execute detect before Barrett could, which would make Barrett upset, given the rivalry the two had. But Barrett had a knowledge of karate moves that Sen didn't have, and getting to explain them to Sen would soften the blow to his ego. Hayley watched for a minute as the two of them squared off and Barrett took the offensive role first. When she was sure they were both following her instructions, she went over to Connie, Marcie, and Ceres.

"You've gotten really good with Barrett," Connie remarked. "He didn't look like he wanted to attack you even a little bit."

"Thanks," Hayley said, scratching the back of her neck. "I guess we've kind of figured each other out by now."

"You want to go ahead and explain protect to Ceres? Marcie, I know I already told you how to do it, but you should listen too. Hayley's a good teacher."

Fighting a blush that was creeping up towards her ears, Hayley knelt down to address Ceres. Marcie's and Connie's eyes both burned into her, but she tried to block them out. She dug out an empty Pokéball from her bag and placed it on the ground.

"Ceres. Can you lift this with confusion?" Ceres stared at the ball and squinted her eyes, and after ten seconds, the ball wobbled and lifted an inch off the ground. "Good. Now show me your water pulse—off to the side, not at me or Marcie." Obediently, Ceres turned to the right and spat out a ball of water. It rippled, formed itself into a shaky ring, then collapsed. "Great! Now, I want you to watch this."

Ceres turned back to Hayley and blinked. Hayley gave her a reassuring nod, then took out her phone and pulled up another TrainerTV video. This one was of a Slowpoke using protect. Ceres' eyes widened and her jaw dropped open as the Pokémon that looked exactly like her erected a sphere of solid, swirling light. "I'm going to teach you how to do this," Hayley said. "It's going to be tricky, so don't worry if you don't get it right away, all right? You've got plenty of time, and I know you can do it. First, I want you to close your eyes."

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Ceres screwed her eyes shut so tight that her lids almost disappeared into her skull. Hayley bit back a laugh. "You don't have to close them that much. Relax a little. I want you to think about what it feels like when you move something with your confusion. Think about what it feels like when you move your water to do a water pulse. Are you thinking about it?" Ceres gave a rumble of agreement. "Good. Now, I want you to think about sunlight. Do you feel it hitting your skin?" Another rumble. "Light is made of rays, and those rays have particles inside of them." It was an oversimplification, but Hayley didn't have time to get a doctorate in optics before explaining this to Ceres. "When you feel the warmth of the sun, think about it as particles sinking into your skin. Now, are you ready? This is the hard part. I want you to move those particles, the same way you moved that Pokéball with confusion or your water with water pulse. I want you to take those particles and push them away from you."

Ceres' expression of intense concentration faltered, and after a moment, she cracked open one eye to stare at Hayley. Hayley smiled. "It sounds silly, right? But that was what the Slowpoke on the screen was doing. And Ciel did it when she fought Sen yesterday."

"Marcie can do it too," Connie broke in. "Not a full protect just yet, but—show her your flash, Marcie." Marcie dipped into a curtsy, and her horn began glowing a bright white. Gradually, the light crept down across her head, then her body, until her entire form was a beacon of sunlight. "That's taking light and reflecting it, just like Hayley said. Just, instead of making it shine, you're going to make it into a shield."

Ceres' jaw was hanging open, and she was blinking rapidly in the way she did when she was trying to process an overload of information. Hayley rubbed her between the ears. "Like I said, it's tricky. But you can do it. The Slowpoke on the video did it, right?" Hesitantly, Ceres rumbled. "Right. Marcie's learning to do this too, and she's going to help. Just take your time and try as hard as you can. There's no rush." She patted her on the head one more time, then stood up. "I'll be right back. I'm going to check on Barrett and Sen."

Barrett and Sen had switched roles, and Sen was throwing punch after punch at Barrett. Barrett lurched away from the first two, but the third came too fast, and he brought up his arms to block. Hayley shook her head. "Barrett! No blocking today. Either you dodge, or you get hit. It was a good block, though."

Barrett turned to her and scoffed, and Sen took the opportunity to slap him on the side of the head. Hayley sighed. It was going to be a long day.

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They worked on protect and detect for an hour before Hayley called for a break. Progress was mixed, like she'd expected. Sen's eyes regularly glinted as Barrett's attacks came at him, and every few minutes, he managed to pull off one of the quick dodges that was a trademark of detect. Barrett had pulled off a few dodges of his own, but Hayley suspected he was doing it at random, rather than actually seeing where Sen's attacks would hit—they were going to have to work on that. Marcie had managed to leverage her flash into a glowing shield that she suspended a couple inches from her body. Ceres was still stuck at the "pushing the light" phase—but she did manage to cover her skin with rippling green light twice, and both times, Hayley showered her with praise. TMs were actual, literal miracle workers. At this rate, their new techniques would be ready for battle in a couple days.

They could have kept working on the moves for a while longer, but Hayley didn't want them to get frustrated or bored. So, after their break, Hayley moved them to the next phase of training. It was then that Hayley revealed what she'd spent the rest of her Dewford Gym prize money on. She overturned the small duffle bag she'd brought with her, and a jumble of elastic bands, nylon straps, cuffs, bars, and handles fell to the ground. The bands were different lengths, thicknesses, and colors, and the cuffs were adjustable to fit different sized wrists and ankles. Barrett, Sen, and Ceres stared at the mess in varying degrees of bafflement and judgment.

"It's a portable gym," Hayley said. "You attach the bands to one of the other things, like this—" She clipped the yellow band to two of the handles—"and then you exercise with it." To prove her point, she pulled her hands apart, struggling as the band tried to tug them back together. "Or, you don't even need to do real exercises. If you just put them on your arms and legs and move around, it'll make your muscles grow stronger. Sen, you can even use them with your yoga."

Sen was intrigued, now, but the other two weren't convinced. Further demonstration was required. "Barrett, you first. Can I put these on your wrists?" Predictably, he was not thrilled by the idea, but after some negotiation and the promise of extra aspear berries at dinner, he consented to let her fit the cuffs around his arms. She attached one of the shorter bands between them, joining Barrett's wrists together over his stomach. The moment she was done, he grunted and huffed, trying to pull his arms back to his sides, but the band held fast. He fixed her with an extremely dirty look, as though she'd tricked him, despite her having shown him exactly what they were supposed to do.

"I'll take it off again if you want," she said. "But you'll grow stronger faster if you keep it on. Now, no matter what exercise you do, you'll be training a bunch of your arm and back muscles at the same time—and other muscles, too. Keep trying to pull your arms apart and you'll see what I mean."

Barrett grumbled, but focused all the same, glaring at the band as though it has personally wronged him. Next, Hayley used two bands to link Ceres' front legs with her back ones, causing her to immediately crunch up into a ball. "Try to walk as far as you can with those," Hayley said. "They'll make your legs stronger." Ceres bellowed and scrunched up her face, gradually managing to separate her front half from her back. The moment she took a step, though, she lost control and curled up all over again. Hayley patted her back. "You're doing great. Just think about how much easier walking will be when we take the bands off again."

Hayley turned to Sen next, only to find that he hadn't waited his turn. He'd gripped one of the bands in both hands, not having bothered to attach it to any of the accessories, and was trying to pull it taut. "Hey. Not like that, you might break it."

Sen glanced up at her with a look that was both indignant and faintly guilty, and the band snapped out of his hands. Hayley moved to sit beside him and attached the band to two of the handles, then handed it back. "Here, try it like this. I'm going to try a few of the exercises they have in this booklet that came with the set. Why don't you try doing them too?" Sen's body type was closest to hers—Barrett's was similar, too, but he didn't have the hand strength to use the handles or the bar instead of the cuffs. Sen would be able to do all of the exercises she did, so she figured this was a good opportunity to get closer to him—even if she was going to embarrass herself thoroughly trying to mimic the exercises shown in the colorful diagrams.

While Hayley and her team worked out, Connie and Marcie practiced their routine. The two of them lunged and twirled in tandem, lifting their arms and legs and bending into poses that were almost as convoluted as Sen's yoga. Marcie flashed and split into double teams and surrounded herself with mist and made magical leaves dance around her, all with a grace and ease that melded perfectly with the dance number she was performing. A few times, Hayley found herself faltering mid-rep as she stared, enthralled, at the two of them. Just like Connie's makeup, seeing it in person had a completely different effect than seeing it through a tiny screen.

When everyone, even Sen, was doubled over and gasping for breath, Hayley called for another break, and at the end of it, she and Connie gathered all their Pokémon together. It was time for telekinesis practice.

"Sen and Ceres, Marcie's going to help you get better control over your confusion technique." As Hayley spoke, Connie was setting up a series of rings. Three tennis balls sat waiting on the ground. "She's going to move a ball around and through the rings, and you're going to follow her. Listen to everything she says, because compared to either of you, she's an expert at telekinesis. Barrett, you're not psychic, but you can join in too. I want you to make a little ball of flame and use that to follow along. If you can get good enough to move your fire wherever she moves her ball, without burning any of the rings, I'll start teaching you to use flame burst."

Barrett, who had been listening to her speak with an indifferent expression, now lit up at the promise of a new fire move. Flame burst was a technique that required a deceptive amount of control. Barrett had been using a proto-version of the move for as long as she'd had him, with balls of embers that burst on impact, but a true flame burst involved pressurizing flames together around a packet of explosive chemicals. Done incorrectly, it could blow up prematurely, injuring or even maiming the user in a worst-case scenario. Hayley was nervous about delving into it this soon, but it'd be better for Barrett to learn it now, as a Magby, rather than encountering it for the first time as a Magmar when his flames would be exponentially hotter and more destructive.

The telekinesis lesson began. Hayley had expected Sen to be far ahead of Ceres in using confusion, given that he'd regularly used it in battle. And, he sort of was, but in other ways, he wasn't. He could use it faster, and with more power, but while Ceres could pick things up and move them around, he… couldn't. Hayley hadn't put two and two together while watching him battle, but she'd never actually seen him grab and hold something with telekinesis—he'd only ever thrown things. Now, while Ceres picked up her ball and wobbled it around an inch at a time, Sen kept dropping his and accidentally launching it away from him. It was like the ball was a hot potato he just couldn't hold onto. Hayley did her best to keep her surprise from clouding her face or her mind, since she didn't want him to take offense.

Through the exercise, Marcie offered instruction in her soft, unintelligible voice. Hayley tried praising her team whenever one of them did something well, but that seemed to have the opposite effect from what she wanted, since it jarred their concentration and made them drop what they were holding. Marcie practically had them all in a trance, and Hayley was clearly interrupting, so eventually she gave up and went to sit on the sidelines. Connie was already there, tapping away on her laptop.

"Perfect timing," she said. "I just finished uploading the video of Marcie fighting Ceres. Want to see?"

"Sure," Hayley lied. She hated seeing videos of herself battling. But this was important to Connie, so she'd push through. Connie angled her laptop towards Hayley, and Hayley read the title of the video:

"I SHUT DOWN my TRAINER friend's SLOWPOKE"

The thumbnail was a stock photo of a Slowpoke looking almost comically confused. Question marks had been added over its head for emphasis, along with the text "NO YAWNING ALLOWED" and "WATER GUN DISABLED" written in bold off to the side. Hayley struggled to think of a comment, but before she could, Connie started up the video.

It was a disaster. How Addison had managed to get so many close-up shots of their Pokémon, Hayley didn't know, but the camera kept cutting between Marcie looking composed and elegant and Ceres being out of her depth and floundering. Hayley had learned to look past Ceres' permanently dopey expression, but seeing it in a slickly edited video made her stomach twist. And despite Connie's assurance that Hayley would "barely be in the frame," she could see herself in all of the shots from Connie's side. When Hayley said "I forfeit," the screen cut to an undignified close-up of her face, and the word "FORFEIT" came down in bold red letters. Then the scene switched to Connie in her hotel room talking to the camera, and Connie switched it off.

"What do you think?" Connie asked. She was grinning from ear to ear. Hayley swallowed and looked out on the field, where Ceres was trying her hardest to get her tennis ball through a loop.

"I don't know," she said at last. "It seems kind of… mean?"

"What? It's not mean." Connie laughed, a tinkling sound that felt harsh to Hayley's ears. "You've spent as much time on TrainerTV as I have. You know this is just how videos there are."

She was right. Even the Hitmonchan-versus-Hitmonlee fight Hayley had used to demonstrate detect had had the title "Hitmonchan CONFIRMED best Tyrogue evolution." But all of those Pokémon starring in videos with clickbait titles had been Pokémon she didn't know. When it was Ceres and herself playing the butt of the joke, it hurt.

"Ceres tried really hard," Hayley said. "And I knew she was a bad matchup for Marcie, but you said you really wanted to fight her, so… I just didn't think you were going to make us look bad."

An uncomfortable silence passed between them. Finally, Connie said, "I can take the video down, if you want."

"No," Hayley said. "No, you—you already made it, and I don't want you to have wasted your time. But I don't think I want to battle on video anymore, if that's okay."

"Okay," Connie said, though there was a lilt to her voice and a quirk to her eyebrow that made it clear she thought Hayley was being unreasonable. "That's fine."

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Dinner was another five-person affair, and all through it, Hayley kept one eye on Connie. Did she look upset, when Addison ranted about the coordinator who had been caught wearing a knockoff dress? Or was that disgust? Clarissa talked about the engagement numbers she'd had this week on her TrainerTV and Pokégram accounts, and Connie listened with rapt interest. But was it out of admiration, or jealousy?

Hayley had never been good at reading people. She'd learned how to read Connie, after all their years as best friends. But when Connie talked to Addison, Skye, and Clarissa, it was like she was no longer Connie. She was an entirely different person.

"You're quiet tonight," Skye said to Hayley, making Hayley jump. Connie dove in to answer for her.

"It's my fault. She's mad because I made that video of Ceres." She said it like a joke, though, not an apology, and the other three girls immediately caught on.

"You'd never make it in the coordinator world," Clarissa said. "That video was tame."

Skye laughed. "Seriously. That video Yvette made of me and Sherbert, when we were both having that bad hair day—"

"That was your own fault," Addison chided. "I told you you couldn't go out looking like that."

"Yeah, yeah, point made! But what about that time you went on stage with your tag sticking out—"

"At least I've never been caught wearing clashing shades of pink." That one was directed at Connie, who froze for a moment before laughing just like Skye had.

"Anyway," Connie said. "Nobody's allowed to make videos of Hayley now. Or she'll get mad, which means I'll get mad." All eyes turned to Hayley now, expecting her to rebut the jab and continue the game. But Hayley fumbled the baton. As everyone's stares bore down on her, her mouth flapped open and shut, but no sound came out. In that moment, she knew exactly how Ceres had felt being the target of Marcie's disable.

Clarissa sighed. "Like I said. You'd never make it in the coordinator world."

And just like last night, the conversation went on without her.