The drive back to Petalburg was long, and most of it was spent in silence. Connie's parents sat at the front of the minivan, her mother driving, her father casting back worried glances from the passenger seat. Hayley and Connie sat in the middle row, with Marcie seated firmly on Connie's lap. Connie stared almost unblinkingly out the window, while Hayley looked down at her hands and tried not to fidget. Miriam sat in the back, along with the luggage that hadn't fit into the trunk. She spent the whole ride with her headphones over her ears, fiddling with her Porygon's core and her new phone.

Miriam hadn't put up a fight when Hayley brought up returning to Petalburg. With how much Miriam hated Petalburg, Hayley had expected her to argue, or to declare that she was setting off towards Mauville on her own—as of today, their three months were up, and all of them were free. But Miriam, after sitting unnervingly still and silent through Hayley's explanation of what had happened, had only asked, "When are we leaving?" And that was that.

Addison and Skye weren't coming back with them. They were staying in Slateport a while longer to be with Clarissa, who still hadn't woken up. The doctors had said there was damage to her skull and spine, and that they wouldn't know for sure what that meant for a while, but that they should "measure their expectations." Connie had cried all night, insisting that it was all her fault, while each of them tried and failed to comfort her. She'd finally sobbed herself into a fitful, exhausted sleep, and since waking, she'd barely said a word to anyone—except maybe, in her head, to Marcie, who never strayed further than an arm's reach away from her.

Reese was alive, and that was all that any of them were allowed to know. Staring at her hands, Hayley contemplated whether it would make things better or worse if he just dropped dead.

At last, they pulled into their old neighborhood in Petalburg. Miriam was dropped off first, followed by Hayley. Standing on her own front lawn, exactly where she'd been three months ago, Hayley couldn't shake the feeling that everything that had happened to her since leaving had been an illusion. The grass was freshly mowed, Taillow chirped from the trees, and the house stood tall and comforting and familiar, just as it all had been that day. When her mother came out to meet her, fear and uncertainty etched on her face, Hayley wrapped her arms around her and didn't want to let go.

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

Hayley had never properly introduced Barrett to her mother. The closest she'd gotten had been her mother watching warily through the windows as Hayley and Connie had had their last sleepover. Now, standing in the backyard once again, Hayley crossed her fingers and hoped that Barrett would be on his best behavior.

It wouldn't help that he was already sore with her—he'd been ambivalent when she'd said they were going to Petalburg, but had exploded into an argument when she'd said they were going to drive there with him in his ball. Being withdrawn in one city and released in another, Hayley had eventually surmised between hisses and growls, was getting on his nerves; he wanted to go out on the routes again, to test his strength against wild Pokémon and witness where they were going for himself. Somewhere in the mess was his half-formed sign for Sen, which consisted of him knocking his forearms together and tapping his head, and ball—Sen had twice now been let out of his ball while Barrett had been locked inside, and Barrett considered that deeply unfair. Honestly, she couldn't blame him; when she pictured things from his point of view, being packed up like a piece of clothing while the world went on outside, it was easy to see his point. She'd tried to explain the circumstances, but he hadn't listened, and had only relented at last when she promised him two things. One, Sen would not be riding with her in the car—and Sen had bristled at that, at the idea of "not being allowed," but he'd witnessed what had happened and could see the turmoil inside of her head, so he mercifully didn't do more than glower. Two, the next time they traveled, it would be on foot, with all of them going together.

…Which meant she was going to have to convince Miriam to try camping again. But that was a problem for the future. At least Ceres had been supportive through the whole thing, nuzzling Hayley's legs and hand and rumbling whenever Hayley's words faltered. Knowing that one of her teammates was in her corner was possibly the only thing keeping Hayley from a full-on nervous breakdown.

Sure enough, Barrett was visibly annoyed when she released him. His dark expression only grew stormier as he stared down Hayley's mom, and for a wild, panicked moment, Hayley thought he might try to attack her. But after looking her up and down, Barrett glanced back at Hayley, then down at himself, before returning his glare to her mom, and she realized—her mom, to Barrett, was basically a larger version of herself. She could see the gears in his head turning as he processed what this meant.

"Hello, Barrett," her mother said. "You're not going to start any fires this time, are you?" Barrett grumbled and rolled his eyes. "I mean it. Lily and Foley over there still know water gun, and they're not afraid to use it." From the pond, Lily the Lombre ribbited and Foley the Wooper warbled.

"He's a lot better at controlling his fire now," Hayley supplied hurriedly, though control hadn't been the issue when he'd set the living room curtains ablaze. "Barrett, can you show her your fire spin? Keep it in the air."

Barrett scoffed at the command, but he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to show off. He blew out a streamer of fire and caught it, weaving it into a basketball-sized orb of flame that he lifted over his head. Hayley's mom cast a surreptitious glance towards Lily and Foley, but Barrett's training with Marcie had helped him improve in leaps and bounds. Only a few embers escaped, and those that did died in midair.

"Good. Now put it out." Reluctantly, Barrett pulled his hands apart. The fireball flared out with a whoosh that sent a rush of hot air over Hayley's face. Ash and soot fluttered to the ground and landed on the grass like snow. "Great job. You're ready to start working on flame burst, I think—we'll start practicing it tomorrow."

"Doesn't that move explode?" Hayley's mother's tone was wry, but underneath, Hayley caught a note of genuine concern.

"I'll be careful," Hayley assured her. "I'm already studying for my class twos—I know how to stay safe."

Her mother sighed. "All right. I'll trust you. Why don't you introduce me to the rest of your team?"

Ceres was out next, and Hayley's mother crouched down to get closer. "Hello, Ceres! Hayley's sent me pictures of you. I understand you're a tough little Slowpoke." Ceres rumbled in agreement, thrusting out her head for scritches and pats, which her mother readily delivered. To Hayley, she said, "I'm still surprised you decided to have a Slowpoke on your team. But from the videos I've seen of your gym battles, she complements Barrett very well."

"Well, she's a rescue, like I said, so—it just kind of happened." Hayley's mother still didn't know the full story of how Hayley had gotten Ceres, and if Hayley had her way, she never would know; as far as she was aware, Hayley had found her after taking a wrong turn down the street and spotting her in an abandoned building. Which was… kind of the truth. Just not the entire truth. "I'm glad I found her, though. She's a great friend, and she's getting really strong. I think she's going to help a lot against Norman's Spinda." Ceres bellowed, and Hayley knelt down as well to run a hand down her back. Meanwhile, Barrett scoffed again, and Hayley resisted the urge to scoff back. Just because he was stronger didn't mean Ceres wasn't strong too.

Sen was the last out, and he'd clearly been waiting, seeing as he burst out of his ball the second Hayley's fingers grazed it. Hayley's mother stood up to address him, thankfully, and when she spoke, her tone was respectful—Sen's radiating aura of total seriousness made it easy to tell he hated being talked down to. "A pleasure to meet you, Sen. Thanks for sticking by my daughter." Sen scrutinized her carefully, determining her worth, like he did to everyone he met. Much like Ceres, Hayley had only spoken in half-truths about how they'd met—he'd "saved her from a Graveler" in Granite Cave. Exactly how Hayley had run into that Graveler, and everything that came after, Hayley had carefully avoided answering. And she thought she'd been doing a good job of reassuring her, but…

Looking at her mother now, in person instead of over a phone screen, Hayley could see the worry lines that had carved themselves onto her face, the tightness she had around her eyes and mouth. They were the same lines and the same tightness that Hayley had been seeing in the mirror more and more as the last three months ticked by, and that her mother was surely reading on her now. The two of them formed twin images of stress and fear, anxiety that had been alternately built and suppressed all summer long. Her mother had known, always, that Hayley was in danger. And for the first time, Hayley thought she understood what her mother was feeling.

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

Later, as they ate dinner, Hayley broached the topic that had been nagging at the back of her mind. "Mom. Why did you stop being a trainer?" Her mother put down her fork and sighed, as though she'd been waiting for this question to come, but she didn't answer right away. "You always told me it was because you got tired of traveling and battling, and you wanted to go back to school. But…"

"There was more to it than that. You're right." She absentmindedly reached up and twisted her braid between her fingers, despite playing with your hair being a "bad habit" that she'd always scolded Hayley for. "I've… thought for a long time, about whether I should tell you the whole story. This past year, especially, while you were preparing for your journey, I tried to decide whether it would be good for you to hear it. In the end, I decided it wouldn't be. You'd already gotten enough horror stories about training from the rangers and your teachers, and throwing my own into the mix wasn't going to make a difference. Or worse, it might make you think you had something to prove, which was the opposite of what I wanted." She shook her head and glanced down at the table before returning her eyes to Hayley. "I might as well tell you now. After everything you've been through, I hope you'll understand what I want you to take from this. The truth is, I lost my nerve, and I just couldn't keep going."

Silence settled around the table. Hayley swallowed. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"I told you already that when I quit, I was eight months in, with five badges and four Pokémon," her mother began. "Lily and Foley, plus Fern and Oscar—my Nuzleaf and Masquerain. I was ready to catch my fifth, and I'd decided I wanted a Tropius. At the time, the only place to find Tropius herds was deep in Route One-Nineteen, between Mauville and Fortree." Hayley sucked in a breath, and her mother nodded. "Right. Hoenn's nightmare route. I thought I was ready, and honestly, I was about as prepared as anyone could be. I'd even taken a three-week break from the gym circuit to study the area and take Ranger courses that would help me survive. What I had to do was go north from Mauville, get about halfway through the route, then go off the path and hike further into the forest. Then I'd have to locate the Tropius herd that lived there, and either barter with them or impress them enough that they'd let me walk off with one of their young. It was possible—people had done it. People my age had done it, even."

She sighed again. "The first part of the plan went off without a hitch, if you can believe that. My team was strong enough to ward off any wild Pokémon I encountered, the herd was easy to find, and one of the Tropius yearlings took a shine to me and agreed to join me on my journey. He was only a little bigger than I was, and couldn't fly me anywhere yet, but I knew he'd grow into an absolute behemoth. I named him Leif."

"You never told me you had a Tropius," Hayley whispered, and her mother gave a sad smile.

"That's because I didn't have him for long. When I tried to get back to the path, that's when everything went wrong. There was a rainstorm that washed out a cliff, which I thought I'd been walking far enough away from, but apparently I hadn't been. I got caught in a rockslide, and I was lucky it just broke my leg instead of killing me outright. It ripped off my backpack, though, and I couldn't find it, so all my supplies were gone. Again, I was lucky all my Pokémon were already out, because their balls were gone too." She rapped her knuckles against the table. "It took… three days, to get back to the path and find a ranger that could send for help. Leif was able to carry me, but like I said, he couldn't fly with me yet, and Tropius are slow on the ground. And now that I was injured, all the Pokémon that had been leaving me and my team alone decided to take their shot. So it was three days, lumbering around in the forest with a broken leg and a splint made of sticks and Oscar's string shot, through unending rain, fighting off every Mightyena and Vigoroth and Golbat and Ninjask that saw us as an easy meal. We couldn't sleep, we couldn't split up to scavenge for food once we'd eaten what Leif had growing on him, and we didn't have any medicine. The entire time, I was sure we were going to die, and…"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

She broke off, covered her mouth with one hand, and shook her head. "None of us did die, which is a miracle," she said through her fingers. "I don't know what I would have done if one of us had. But for some reason, even once I was back in Mauville City, that fear I'd felt on the route wouldn't go away. I tried to get back into the usual routine—battling, training—and I just couldn't. It was like something had broken. Every time I tried to battle, I had this terror, like I was fighting for my Pokémon's lives and any wrong move would end up with them dead. And whenever I thought about going out on the routes again, I couldn't breathe. I sat around in Mauville for two weeks, not doing anything, and I told myself it was because I was waiting for my leg to heal, but eventually I just… had to admit it. I didn't want to do it anymore. I couldn't.

"I released Leif and sent him back to the route. It killed me to do it, but there was no way I'd be able to care for a Tropius back at my parents' house in Mossdeep. Fern, she still wanted to battle, so I traded her to one of my friends. She's a Shiftry now; I think I've shown you pictures. Oscar, Foley, and Lily stayed with me. Oscar died a few years before you were born—natural causes, like I've told you before. Bugs have short lives. And that brings us to today."

There was a long, long silence before Hayley finally found the words to respond. "So… It was like what happened to me, Gavin, Miriam, and Howie in Petalburg Woods. Only worse."

"I wouldn't say that it was worse. It lasted longer, sure, and the terrain was more dangerous. But I'd had weeks to prepare, I went in knowing the risks, and I had a five-badge team at my side. It's not the same as getting ambushed on a supposedly safe route three days into your journey."

Hayley chewed her lip. "Is that why you were so mad at me? After you learned what happened?"

"It wasn't just that. And I wasn't just mad at you. But yes, that was part of it. It was exactly the sort of thing I never wanted to happen to you."

Outside, the sky was starting to turn a pale orange. Unseen Volbeat and Illumise began to call out their evening chorus. The food on the table went untouched. Hayley's mother continued: "It's supposed to be safer now. Smartphones, GPS trackers, all sorts of things we'd never even thought of when I was your age. If a kid goes missing anywhere in the region, they can find them, as long as they're aboveground with their Pokédex charged up. But it's not enough. The wilderness is always going to be dangerous. Cities are always going to be dangerous. Technology can't solve everything."

"I know," Hayley said. "I know, and you—you know I know."

"I do. I had just hoped you'd make it at least as long as I did before learning it firsthand, if you even had to learn it at all." Hayley's mother locked eyes with her, and Hayley flinched, but didn't look away. "Hayley. Please, if you go through something like this again, and it hurts too much—I know I've told you over and over that you need to be responsible and look out for your team, and you do, but you have to look out for yourself, too. And if that means stopping, then stop. Don't torture yourself just because you're proud. That's what I want you to take from my story. Okay?"

"Okay," Hayley echoed. "But… I do want to keep going, mom."

"I know you do."

Hayley looked down at her spaghetti and prodded it with her fork. By now, the strands were congealing together under the sauce. "It's my birthday next month," she said abruptly, and her mother raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"So I know it's early, but if you're worried about me staying safe… There's something I want that might help."

"It's not another Pokémon, is it? Because I'm all out of Lotad to trade."

"It's not another Pokémon." Hayley gripped her fork tighter, breathed in, and breathed out. "I want to sign up for self-defense classes. Human ones. I took karate classes on Dewford, and I liked them, but they didn't teach me how to really fight, and… I think I need that."

"Oh." The levity her mother had tried to inject into the room vanished again, popping like a balloon. She cleared her throat, picked up her own fork again, and nodded slowly. "All right. I think I can help with that."

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

After dinner, Hayley went over to Connie's house. When her parents answered the door, though, they said that Connie was already sleeping, and that it would be best if she stayed that way. She had a gauntlet of appointments with lawyers and doctors to get to tomorrow, and she needed her rest. Hayley reluctantly agreed, despite the pain in her chest that rose as she turned to leave. Connie was here, and alive, and okay—or at least as okay as she could be. Logically, she knew that. But it would have helped if she could have seen it with her own eyes.

Instead, she made her way back to the Trainer's District and checked into the Pokémon Center. Her mother had offered—practically insisted—for Hayley to stay with her, and she was sorely tempted, but breaking routine was a dangerous thing. Older trainers said it all the time: spend a week back in your own bed, and you might never want to leave it again. After everything that had happened, she couldn't let comfort be the thing that did her in.

Miriam was already in the room, sitting on the bottom bunk—which actually was her bunk, this time. She'd kept to their promise. She had her headphones on and was hunched over a shiny new laptop, typing furiously. The speed of her fingers on the keys was blinding. Both her phone and Porygon were connected to the laptop via cables snaking out from the ports.

Just standing and watching her felt kind of awkward, and Hayley didn't want to climb into the top bunk without letting her know she was there, so after some deliberation, she stepped in front of her and waved a hand near her face. "Hey."

Miriam's head snapped up, and she yanked her headphones off. "Hey."

"You got a new laptop?"

"Yeah."

An uncomfortable beat passed. Desperate for the conversation not to die, Hayley cast about for any fact she could remember about computers. "Is it a good one? How many… gigabytes, is it?"

Miriam snorted. "Gigabytes? What is this, the thirties?" As Hayley flushed and tried to think of a better computer fact, Miriam tilted the laptop towards her, carefully adjusting her phone and Porygon as she did so they wouldn't be pulled off the bed. "It's actually a pretty nice model. I don't think I can game on it or anything, but it's small enough to carry around easily, and it's got a case I can put it in to protect it from stuff like water and… you know, Xena."

"Oh. That's good."

"And now that I've got it, I've been able to get some real work done on Zero," she continued, unplugging her Porygon from the port and lifting it up. "Watch this. Zero, activate!"

Hayley stepped back and braced for the sound of impact, but this time, Miriam lobbed the core gently instead of flinging it at the wall. Still, it came perilously close to hitting the ground before its lenses flashed to life and the Porygon's form emerged. The moment its body had stabilized, it floated to the exact center point of the room and hovered perfectly still.

Miriam pointed at Hayley. "Identify trainer."

"Querying." Zero's limbs spun in a slow pinwheel for several seconds before it spoke again: "Identified. Indicated trainer is HAYLEY SUMMERS."

"Hang on," Hayley said. "That voice—"

"It's the original Pokédex voice, yeah," Miriam gloated. "Pretty cool, right? Zero, give statistics on Hayley Summers."

"HAYLEY SUMMERS' statistics are as follows. Status: Active. Age: Thirteen. Journey time: three months. Tier: Second. Badges obtained: Stone, Knuckle."

Hayley wasn't sure whether she should be impressed or afraid. "Wow. Can it do that for anyone?"

Miriam's smile fell. "Just people I'm linked with on Trainer's Eyes. I'm trying to teach him to break into other databases, but even hacked Porygon have rules about that, apparently."

"The following Hoennian laws prevent the unauthorized access of secured computer systems: the Electronic Fraud Prevention Act. The Computer Security Act—"

"Yeah, I know," Miriam said, even as Zero continued to rattle off legislation. To Hayley, she said, "There's ways around it, though. So I'm going to keep trying."

"What if you get—" Actually, she could already guess what Miriam would say to that. "Never mind."

By now, Hayley had stood in place long enough and wanted to sit down, but found herself facing the exact quandary Miriam had complained about back in Rustboro: there really was nowhere to sit in a Pokémon Center room except the bottom bunk and the floor. Resigned, she walked over to a corner, dropped her backpack, and slumped down after it. "How'd your visit with your mom go?"

Miriam scowled and dipped her head down towards her computer again. "It was crap. She kept acting like she was all afraid for me, when she's the one who sent me out to die in the first place."

"It doesn't make sense," Hayley agreed. "She had to know it was dangerous when she told you to go, right? Didn't she ever try being a trainer when she was a kid?"

Miriam furrowed her brow and said nothing. The room was filled with the sound of her fingers pounding on the keys. Finally, she said, "She doesn't know shit. She was never a trainer, and everything she's learned about being one comes from Kanto. And the Kanto routes are like, literal walks in the park compared to Hoenn routes."

"But she had to have known Hoenn was different," Hayley pressed. "Even if you've only been here a few years—everyone talks about how dangerous it is on the routes. And you took the trainer prep course. Didn't you tell her?"

"Duh, obviously I did. But she didn't want to hear it. Whenever someone tells her something she doesn't like, she just buries her head in the sand like a fucking Dodrio and pretends everything's fine." She smashed a finger onto the enter key so hard that the entire laptop nearly slipped off her lap. "When we all got attacked by that Vigoroth—it's only the second time I've ever seen her admit she was wrong. And now she wants me to come back, because obviously she knows better than me again, and I'm the one who doesn't understand how dangerous it can be out there."

"Oh. That's…" Hayley sighed. "I'm sorry. That sucks."

"Yeah." Miriam shrugged. "But at least I got a new computer out of it. And now that I have two badges, she can't tell me what to do ever again."

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

As it turned out, Hayley did not like the top bunk. It had been years since the last time she'd slept in the top half of a bunk bed, and she swore that the last time she had, her head hadn't been nearly so close to the ceiling, the posts hadn't wobbled nearly so much every time she turned over, and the ground hadn't felt nearly so far away. It was currently three in the morning, and she needed a drink of water, but Miriam was finally asleep below her, and she was sure she'd wake her up by fumbling with the ladder in the dark, and "Miriam complaining" was not something she wanted to add to the list of things she hated about tonight.

Part of her wanted to approach Miriam as soon as morning came and ask her to swap back. The other part of her knew she couldn't. This was her victory; Miriam had conceded the top bunk to her. Giving it back now would be defeat.

As the hours passed, Hayley returned again and again to her phone, even though that was supposedly the worst thing to do when you were trying to sleep. She tried studying for her class twos, she tried studying Norman, she tried scrolling through forums and news sites—anything to keep her mind off of the sick sense of dread that loomed on the horizon. And every time she unlocked her phone, one app in particular stared at her from the screen.

Open it. You know you want to open it.

For hours, she resisted. In a fit of defiance, she almost managed to uninstall it. But the temptation was too much, and one slip of the thumb was all it took for the Trainer's Eyes homepage to spring up in front of her.

It had been three months. The partner program had ended. School was starting up again. And everywhere around the region, dreams had died.

"You know what the washout rate is for trainers in the first three months?"

She knew she shouldn't look. But she did anyway.

Clarissa Banks—Inactive.

Kei Bellamy—Inactive.

Chad Bennett—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Beam Badge. Mauville City.

Addison Beringer—Inactive.

Osmund Carter—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Beam Badge. Petalburg City.

Gavin Clark—Inactive.

Howard Durant—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge. Mauville City.

Corbin Fisher—Inactive.

Skye Harlow—Super Rank (0 points). Slateport City.

Concordia Harper—Inactive.

Melinda Hathaway—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Balance Badge. Route 115.

Forrest Keyes—Inactive.

Wesley Lawson—Stone Badge, Normal Rank (9 points). Verdanturf Town.

Caelin Marlow—Inactive.

Caleb Nichols—Inactive.

Campbell Osborne—Inactive.

Hayley Summers—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge. Petalburg City.

Miriam Taylor—Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge. Petalburg City.

Ten out of the eighteen trainers from her class had quit. And for some, it might be temporary; some might start up again. Connie, at least, was definitely going to start up again—right? But for now, the number was ten out of eighteen. Fifty-six percent.