Hayley passed her exam. It was a close call—two more wrong answers and she would have failed and had to wait a month to try again. That would have screwed her over royally, given that her gym battle against Norman was scheduled for two days later. But she passed, and that was what mattered.
She should have slept soundly that night. Instead, she lay awake in bed until the sun came up, staring at the ceiling.
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One more day. One more day until her gym battle, and Barrett's potential evolution. She tried to treat it like any other day. She trained her team, ran everyone through their strategies, and made sure they all knew what to do. The battle plan was simple, because against Norman, keeping things simple was the best way to win. Each gym leader valued something different—for Roxanne, it was knowledge and tactics; for Brawly, it was creativity and improvisation. And for Norman, it was diligence and mastery. You didn't need to come at him with fancy tricks, and you didn't need to prepare for every one of his moves. What you needed was to know your own team, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to command them effectively and without hesitation. Any fumbled order, any half-baked move that your Pokémon weren't ready to pull off, any strategy that was poorly thought out or above your level to execute, would be punished swiftly and without mercy. You had to keep your head in the game, show strong fundamentals, and never, ever let your guard down.
Naturally, Miriam had struggled. She'd won in the end, but it had been down to the wire. Xena had taken out his Linoone cleanly enough, albeit not as quickly as they'd been hoping, but then his Spinda had come out, and everything had fallen apart. Xena had immediately been caught in a teeter dance and needed to be switched out for Zero, who was supposed to win the matchup with no trouble—except the Spinda's erratic steps had been too difficult for him to track, and a mixture of psybeams and feint attacks and sucker punches had slowly but surely whittled him down and drained his power supply before he could claim victory. Miriam had sent Xena out again, and Xena had gotten hit with another teeter dance, and it was at that point that Miriam had been threatened with a disqualification for unsportsmanlike conduct due to the sheer volume of curses and trash talk she was spewing.
In the end, the only thing that had saved the battle was the fact that after endless psychic onslaughts at Marcie's hands, Yuna had apparently become very good at resisting all forms of confusion and mental control. She'd ended the Spinda's reign of terror and gone on to narrowly beat Norman's Vigoroth into submission. Norman had been visibly peeved as he'd handed Miriam her badge, while Miriam, in the blink of the eye, had transformed from red-faced and screaming to unbearably smug. Afterwards, Hayley had asked Miriam if she'd been afraid of the Vigoroth, and Miriam had said no. By her own admission, she'd been too pissed off to think straight.
Hayley hoped that her own match would go a little more elegantly. But she'd run it through in her head again and again, and no matter which way she played it, the only way Barrett could clinch victory against the Vigoroth was if he evolved. Everything was riding on their evolution gambit.
Barrett versus Vigoroth—the matchup that might have happened in Petalburg Woods, if the encounter with the Trevenant hadn't made her stay her hand. But what if. Mental playthroughs of Barrett being knocked out on Norman's clay battlefield turned into images of him gutted and bleeding out on the forest floor. He would have died if she'd let him out; she was sure of that now. Howie's Aron, and Gavin's Shroomish, and Xena, had all survived, but they had all been cautious and willing to listen to their trainers. Barrett's encounter with the Zangoose under Rustboro showed all too well what he would have done instead.
She'd been so stupid, that first week as a trainer. She'd made so many mistakes. And with Barrett's possible evolution growing closer by the hour, it felt like every one of those mistakes was ready to come to a head. She tried and tried to push the thoughts away, but they came back stronger and stronger each time, until finally, just before dinner, she recalled Ceres and Sen with a word of apology. She had to speak to Barrett alone.
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"I want to talk to you about evolution."
Barrett dropped the fire spin he'd been holding. His eyes glimmered, and his shoulders straightened. As was always the case when the subject came up, she had his full attention.
"I don't know for sure when it's going to happen," she half-lied. "But I know it's going to be soon. And I want to make sure you know what to expect when it does. You already know how your body's going to change, right?"
Barrett scoffed. He flattened his fingers, touched the tips of his claws together, then pulled them apart, balled his hands into fists, and lifted them in front of his chest. More strong.
"Right. You're going to get stronger; that much is obvious. But I want to explain it a little more." She sat cross-legged on the ground and took out her Pokédex, pulling up a picture of a Magmar on the screen. "You'll be a lot taller than you are now, and a lot heavier. That'll make moving around feel really weird. You'll probably be pretty slow and clumsy at first, but that'll go away once you get used to your new muscles, so don't get frustrated. The biggest difference, though, is going to be your fire." She tapped the image of the Magmar, changing it to a cutaway diagram of its internal organs. From the flame organ in the stomach, channels ran out to vents in its mouth, head, arms, back, and tail. "As a Magby, you can only breathe fire from your mouth. Once you're a Magmar, fire will want to come out everywhere, every time you breathe. You'll be able to control it with some practice, but at the start you're basically going to be burning all the time, which means you'll run out of gas quickly and get really tired. Again, don't get upset when it happens, because once you've trained for a bit the problem will go away."
Barrett's eyes were the size of dinner plates. He was so easy for her to read by now that Hayley wondered how it had ever been difficult for her to understand him. The simple answer was that at the beginning, she hadn't listened. She was listening now.
"Since you're going to be a lot bigger, and have a lot more fire," she continued, "some other things are going to change. You'll be able to travel to places you could never have gone before. Remember those stairs on Dewford Island that gave you so much trouble? They'll be easy for you once you evolve. And of course, you'll be able to fight all sorts of battles and all sorts of opponents that you can't handle now. The tradeoff is that because of all your flames, I'll have to recall you more often when we're in buildings. You won't be able to sleep on the Pokémon Center floor anymore either, since you might melt it. But I'll make up for it by making sure we spend even more time outside. Is that going to be all right with you?"
His enthusiasm dimmed a bit at that, but still, he nodded. Strength at any cost, even if that cost was the inconvenience of living in a world that wasn't meant to handle two-thousand-degree flames. Hayley let out a breath. That left one more thing to discuss, and it was the one she was most dreading.
"Barrett. Do you remember what we talked about, our first night in Rustboro?" His head snapped up, and he refocused on her. "I said I would help you get stronger, and that I would help you evolve. I think I've done that. You're definitely stronger now than you were four months ago, right?" Another nod. "So my question is… Are you happy with the way things are? And once you evolve, are you okay if we… keep going, the way we have been?" Barrett stared at her, eyes wide, head cocked. Hayley clenched her fists. "What I'm asking, Barrett, is—do you want to stay with me?"
Because for all Hayley had come to understand Barrett, for all Barrett had come to grudgingly respect her, for everything they'd been through together, there was one thing she'd never been able to figure out for sure:
Was she still just a means to an end?
Evolution had been what Barrett wanted more than anything. Evolution had been her ace in the hole, the thing that had finally gotten him to agree to stay and work with her. And once he managed it, that carrot would be yanked off the stick, and Hayley would have nothing left to bargain with. Maybe she could win him over by promising he'd evolve into a Magmortar in a year's time, but a year was an eternity to a Pokémon as young as Barrett, and he'd come to resent being strung along, and Hayley would be stuck with the creeping dread that in a year's time, they'd be right back where they were today. So, she was ripping the band-aid off right here and right now.
Barrett kept staring. Hayley's words tumbled out one after the other. "Our deal. It was that you'd listen to me, I'd help you evolve, and if you ever wanted to be traded, all you had to do was let me know. And you haven't ever told me you wanted to be traded, and I'm really happy about that, and I want to make sure it's because you're—because you're actually happy with me, and not just because you think you don't have any other options. I want to know that you want to stay with me. Do you understand?"
Barrett's brow creased, and his eyes grew stormy. Was she offending him by assuming he'd ever consider leaving? Or offending him by asking for commitment? "I still don't know what your other trainers were like," Hayley said. "Maybe someday when you're better at signing, or if you decide to let a psychic like Marcie read your mind and translate for you, you can tell me all about them. But I do know that I want to be your last trainer. I want to train you for as long as you'll have me, and I want us to make it all the way to Ever Grande side by side. There's… always the option, that one day if it doesn't work out, you can still ask for me to trade you to someone else. I'm not saying you can't. But if things keep going like they are now, then will you want to stay with me? As long as we keep getting stronger, will you let me keep on being your trainer?"
As Barrett kept up his unblinking stare, Hayley held her hand out flat, palm-down, and stretched out her pinky and thumb. She gently thrust it down towards the ground. "This is the sign for stay. If you want to stay, then make this sign. Okay?" She locked eyes with him, and just as she had in Rustboro, she didn't look away. No doubt. No fear. Only understanding and trust. Barrett stayed still for a long while.
And then, after a long minute, he held out his hand and thrust it towards the ground.
"Good. That's—good!" With the staredown over, Hayley blinked—a bit too rapidly, trying to chase away both the dryness and the relieved tears springing up in the corners of her eyes. "I'm glad you'll stay with me, Barrett. We can do great things together. I know we can." She paused, then, and pressed her lips together in a thin smile. "Just, uh, one more thing." She held out her hands again, extended her index fingers, and hooked them around each other, then twisted her hands around and did it again.
"This is the sign for friend. I hope that someday, you can tell me that we're friends."
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"This is a third-tier gym challenge between Hayley Summers and Leader Norman. The format will be a three on three single battle. The challenger is allowed one substitution. Standard League rules are in place."
Norman was a terrifying man. The intimidation didn't come from how he looked or how he dressed—his height was average, his features were plain, and unlike other leaders, he didn't dye his hair or wear ostentatious outfits. He would have looked like anyone you might pass on the street, if it weren't for the intensity that radiated off him at all times. His aura of seriousness and general disapproval was so overwhelming that it even put Sen to shame. Right now, his eyes were locked on Hayley, and she struggled not to shrink away. She'd earned her place on this battlefield, she told herself; she had everything she needed to win. All she needed was to make it through the next few minutes.
She could do this.
"Leader Norman, send out your first Pokémon." Without looking away, Norman reached for his belt, plucked off a ball, and tossed it onto the field. A Linoone, larger and fiercer than any Hayley had ever seen, materialized and hunched down in preparation. "Challenger, send out your first Pokémon."
Hayley threw her own ball as close as she could get to midfield without crossing the line, and Sen emerged. Despite him standing head and shoulders above his opponent, the Linoone dwarfed him in bulk; it was nearly twice as long as he was tall, and had to be several times his weight. They were going to have to time their hits carefully to avoid being knocked around.
The referee raised her hand. "Begin!"
Without a word from Hayley, Sen raced ahead and off to the Linoone's right. The safest place to be when fighting a Linoone, they'd both concluded, was on the back half of its side; being in front meant facing teeth and claws, and standing behind it made them an easy target for pin missile. But Linoone had few good options to cover their flank, and due to a quirk of their biology, they wouldn't be able to pivot on a dime for a counterattack.
Of course, Norman knew that too, and so did his Linoone. They weren't going to let them take the advantage without a fight. "Fury swipes."
"Feint!"
The Linoone sprang forward, dug its claws into the clay, and turned ninety degrees at the exact moment Sen got within range. Just as it reared up to strike, though, Sen blinked forward with detect, and its claws raked down onto empty air. Sen shunted himself all the way to its other side and thrust an elbow into the Linoone's ribs.
"Sand attack. Get some distance."
"Psi-tackle!"
Once again, the Linoone drove its claws into the ground. This time, it ran away from Sen, its hind paws kicking up clods of clay aimed directly at Sen's face. Sen jumped back and shoved out his hands for a confusion. The psychic wave didn't so much as deflect the attack as scatter it, filling the air with a thin cloud of dust that didn't block visibility but did make Sen blink his eyes several times in rapid succession. His focus faltered, and the confusion petered out well before it could trip the Linoone up. With his Pokémon safely out of Sen's reach, Norman gave his next command: "Pin missile."
Hayley grimaced. At this distance, its quills would be able to hit them no matter where they dodged to, and Sen wouldn't be able to close in safely with detect. Against another opponent they might risk trying to block with rock tomb, but against Norman? It was safer to take the hit.
"Push through. Force palm." Sen nodded stoically and charged forward, crossing one arm over his chest and tucking the other in at his side. The Linoone planted its feet—it had to stand still to aim, and that, at least, was a point in their favor. Every single hair on its back seemed to bristle and sharpen, and in the blink of an eye the first volley whizzed across the arena. Spines two and three inches long struck Sen's torso and buried themselves under the skin, making Sen grunt, but he didn't so much as flinch. He just ducked his head, ran the rest of the way, and slammed his glowing fist into the Linoone's flank. The Linoone yelped and tumbled away, landing on its side, and Hayley's heart leapt. "Keep going—"
"Dig." Just as Sen closed in again, the Linoone rolled over and clawed its way underground. The tunnel behind it was open for barely a second before filling with more dislodged clay, leaving Sen with no way to follow. Sen huffed and stepped back, eyes flashing green. He was tracking it with foresight. And while he did, Hayley watched Norman. It was a routine they'd perfected against digging opponents; Hayley would watch the other trainer while Sen monitored the other Pokémon's position. If the trainer signaled their Pokémon to attack, the tell would give them an extra split-second of warning. And—there! Norman scraped the front of his foot across the ground, the movement so small that Hayley almost missed it.
"Jump!" Sen leapt back from where the Linoone waited underground—
—but no Linoone appeared. It had been a feint. Now, Norman tapped his heel, and that was the real signal. The moment Sen landed, the Linoone erupted from the ground. It flew into him, tackling him to the ground and burying him in a flurry of teeth and claws.
"Throw it!" There was no way for Sen to focus for a detect, confusion, or force palm with a hurricane of blows raining down on him—they had to do this the old-fashioned way. As the Linoone raked is claws against his chest once more, Sen grabbed one of its front legs in one hand and braced the other hand against its ribs. Then, he twisted and kicked as hard as he could. The Linoone whimpered and crumpled to the side, curling in around the injury. Sen rose, blood dribbling from countless punctures and scrapes and soaking into the battlefield ground. He was standing squarely on the Linoone's side.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Pin missile." The Linoone whined and began to limp forward, but this time, Sen was faster. He leapt after it, pivoted in midair, and kicked. His foot came down on the Linoone's back, exploding with a flash and crack of aura so powerful that it echoed off the stadium walls and drove the Linoone's entire body into the clay. One more pained wail trailed off into nothingness as it at last went limp and fell unconscious.
"Leader Norman's Linoone is unable to battle! Leader Norman, send out your next Pokémon!"
Hayley exhaled. "Great job, Sen. Remember, for the next one, don't look it in the eyes." In fact, Hayley even averted her own eyes as Norman's Spinda appeared on the field. It stood taller than Sen, and the moment it materialized, it began swaying back and forth like a drunken toddler. Something about its movement, and the way its fur shifted and its eyes rolled, made Hayley feel like she was wobbling on the edge of a cliff.
"Begin!"
"Teeter dance."
"Tackle it!" At the corners of Hayley's vision, she saw Sen lunge forward, head down. The Spinda simply giggled, and just before he hit, it stepped away with a stride that looked far too long for its stubby legs. Sen came around for another tackle, only to go wide again. Clearly, this wasn't going to work. "Try psi-tackle!"
"Sucker punch."
Dammit! "Get back—!" It was too late. The Spinda flickered forward, just as Sen and Barrett did when they used detect, and drove a spotted paw into Sen's gut. The hit shattered Sen's control of the burgeoning confusion and sent him staggering back, reeling from whiplash. "Kick it, Sen! Knock it away!"
Sen braced himself and struck out with one leg just as the Spinda's paws came down again. One paw smacked the left side of his skull and the other smacked the right, knocking it back and forth, but Sen's momentum carried through and planted his foot in the Spinda's stomach. No flash of aura this time; it was his muscle and meager weight alone that sent the Spinda lurching away. As the Spinda regrouped, Sen shook his concussed head, trying and apparently failing to clear it. Confusion was definitely out until he could get some rest—but maybe detect was still on the table. "Feint." Sen took a deep breath and flashed towards the Spinda—
"Copycat."
—and the Spinda flashed towards Sen, perfectly mimicking his detect and even the rapid turn he made at the end upon realizing he'd overshot his mark. Now, instead of Sen being several feet behind the Spinda, he was directly in front of it—and looking directly at its face. "Look away!" Hayley yelled.
"Teeter dance." It was too late. The Spinda swayed to the side, and so did Sen, his body jerking as though being controlled by a puppeteer. With irregular steps, it began to totter around the field, forcing Sen to mirror its every movement as a dance partner in its bizarre waltz. Hayley called out again and again to no effect—Sen's eyes were locked on the Spinda, and he couldn't hear her. She knew what was coming next, and the only way to avoid it was to recall Sen. But, of course, he would be furious if she did. Teeter dance, infuriating as it was, was just one more challenge he wouldn't turn away from.
Hayley's hand, which had been hovering over Sen's ball, fell back to her side. And she watched helplessly as the Spinda, with Sen caught in its thrall, contorted its body and slammed its head towards the ground. It stopped halfway, but Sen didn't; his head impacted the clay with an audible smack, and he finally went still.
"The challenger's Meditite is unable to battle! Challenger, send out your next Pokémon!" Norman's eyes bore down on Hayley again as the referee spoke, no doubt judging her decision not to switch. She could justify herself later—she had to stay focused. The fight hadn't gone as well as she'd hoped, but Sen had at least managed to land one solid hit and made the Spinda waste some of its energy. Ceres could handle the rest.
Hayley sent Ceres out, and Norman slowly nodded. To her? To himself? She didn't know. Ceres stared down the towering, teetering Spinda and gave a friendly bellow.
"Begin!"
"Psi-slam."
"Feint attack."
Ceres furrowed her brow in concentration just as the Spinda disappeared. It reappeared almost immediately at her side, driving a foot into her ribs with a distorted chortle. But that was fine—the evasion had come too early. Ceres' confusion was just getting started. With another bellow, she coalesced her telekinetic force around the Spinda and pulled, dragging it down onto its knees. "Good! Use water gun!"
"Psybeam." The Spinda's nauseating eyes glowed, and Ceres inhaled, and both attacks launched at the same time. Water and psionic rings collided in midair, blasting each other to pieces.
"Tilt its head up!" Obediently, Ceres wrenched the Spinda's chin towards the ceiling and continued her attack. The water gun at last hit its mark on her opponent's torso, making it recoil and cry out in pain.
"Escape," Norman ordered. Slippery as anything, the Spinda vanished from Ceres' clutches, leaving her grasping thin air. It emerged a few feet behind her, and Hayley shouted out her next command:
"Water wave!"
"Psybeam." Just like Brawly, Norman was preparing to counter a water attack. Hayley almost gave the game away with a grin, but forced her face back into neutrality as Ceres turned halfway around and let out a huge yawn. The rainbow light that had been gathering in front of the Spinda flickered and vanished; the Spinda itself blinked, then shut its eyes completely, giving a huge yawn back. Across the field, Norman crossed his arms. "Uproar."
Hayley had known this was coming. And while it wasn't as good as the Spinda going to sleep, she'd take it. Uproar meant no fancy tricks, no sly escapes, just a full-on assault. And if there was one thing Ceres was good at, it was weathering an assault. As the Spinda took in a deep breath, Hayley yelled "Water pulse!" and clapped her hands over her ears.
The Spinda threw back its head and gave a horrible, gut-wrenching shriek. It flew across the field, tottering steps transformed with the unstable fury of a tantrum, and descended on Ceres just as the Linoone had descended on Sen. It rained down punches and kicks and scratches and headbutts, screaming at the top of its lungs all the while, and Ceres, placid as ever, sat there and took it. The Spinda was too light for unaugmented physical attacks to knock her away, and its screams didn't carry the emotional component that Marcie's disarming voice had, which meant that until their timer ran out, she could tank every hit without batting an eye.
The water pulse built slowly at first, as all her attacks did. The air in Norman's gym was dry and didn't give her a lot to work with—she had to supplement it by pointing her head up and sending out her water gun in a fountain above her. She caught the droplets as they fell, suspending them into an orb that grew bit by bit until at last, it was the same size as her. Then, she struck. With a forceful yell, she snapped her head down and brought the orb splashing down on top of the Spinda. The weight of hundreds of pounds of water crashing onto its head knocked the Spinda clean off its feet, its scream abruptly cutting off into a sputtering cough. Half the water had burst out of the orb at the first hit, but Ceres still had control over the rest, and she threw it towards the prone Spinda.
"Protect." A green barrier shimmered around the Spinda. The orb collided with it and blew apart at the unexpected impact, sending its remnants down onto the clay. Inside its shield, the Spinda staggered back to its feet. It was breathing heavily, its head was bowed, and the erratic pattern of its steps now looked less like a dance and more like it was actually struggling to keep its balance. Ceres was flagging too, her eyes half-lidded with the effort the water pulse had taken out of her. Norman watched both of them for several moments before calling out his next command: "Last resort." The Spinda's eyes flashed, and once again, it screamed.
"Protect!" The Spinda's barrier went down, and Ceres' began to flicker into place. With a final burst of adrenaline, the Spinda channeled its frustration and fatigue into unnatural power and tore towards Ceres, charging in a straight line for the first time since the battle had started. Hayley hadn't even known Spinda could go in a straight line. Ceres' protect solidified at the exact moment of impact, repelling the Spinda back and making it shriek in disappointment. Fueled even further by one more failed attack, it slammed its limbs against the barrier, cracking its surface like glass—but it didn't shatter. Ceres held strong. Hit after hit, and she didn't budge, holding up the protect with all her might. And finally, after one last hit, the Spinda's borrowed strength gave out. It fell onto its knees and toppled over, nauseating eyes sliding shut.
"Leader Norman's Spinda is unable to battle! Leader Norman, send out your final Pokémon!"
This was it. Norman recalled his Spinda without and word and reached for the final ball on his belt. Hayley sucked in a breath and readied herself to see…
Vigoroth. It was on Norman's side of the field, but even at this distance, Hayley could make out the bulging of its eyes, the rapid rise and fall of its chest. Hayley's own heartbeat rose as if trying to match it. Ceres stared up at the towering Pokémon in awe, and then groaned, the pain of the battle finally catching up to her—
Hayley recalled her. The decision was half conscious, half instinct, scrambling to protect Ceres from the monster before her. Ceres didn't stand a chance in this fight.
"The challenger has recalled their Slowpoke! Challenger, send out your third Pokémon!"
The smell of rain. The what-if scenario of Barrett bleeding out on the forest floor. This wasn't the forest. Barrett wasn't going to die.
Corbin hadn't thought his Taillow would die, either. But… What was she more afraid of? Death, or disappointment?
Forcing her fingers to unclench, she threw Barrett's ball onto the field.
Barrett materialized ready to fight, planting his feet and snarling a challenge at the Vigoroth just as he'd done to the Zangoose three months ago. The Vigoroth, more than twice his height and several times his mass, scowled down and hooted back. Each of its limbs alone was the size of Barrett. Each of its gleaming claws was long enough to run him through.
"Begin!"
"Retaliate."
"Detect!" The Vigoroth gave a mad, hooting cackle and threw itself at Barrett, whose clumsy detect barely shunted him to the side in time to avoid disembowelment. Norman was on the offensive, Hayley thought through her racing pulse; he'd pinned down her style and was ready to drive her into a corner. "Flame wheel!" They had to keep pace, they—
"Back." As Barrett breathed out fire, wrapped it around himself, and charged, the Vigoroth leapt back, howling in delight. But Barrett's mastery of flame wheel had grown and grown, and now he directed his fire towards the ground to propel himself faster than his legs could carry him. He launched into the unprepared Vigoroth like a rocket, thrusting his flames forward and exploding them in a direct hit. The scent of sizzling fur filled the air, and the Vigoroth's eyes pinned. It was burned. That meant…
"Get away!" Hayley yelled, at the same time Norman ordered "Façade." Barrett began fading into smoke, but before he could finish, the Vigoroth barreled through him, screeching in primal fury. Knocked back into corporeal form, Barrett went tumbling across the field, and the Vigoroth loped after him on its long legs. "Detect!" Hayley shouted again, voice pitching higher and higher in mounting desperation. Barrett clambered to his feet and blinked away just as the Vigoroth's claws came down—but when he reappeared several yards closer to her, she saw that the dodge had come too late. Two fresh red lines bloomed across his stomach, steadily oozing blood.
"S-smog." Her voice cracked as she gave the order, and Barrett, sensing something was wrong, glanced back at her in confusion. His head turned just for a second—but that was all the Vigoroth needed. Without waiting for an order, it charged ahead and slammed one of its muscular arms into Barrett's gut, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling again—further from it, and closer to Hayley. It closed in once more, and now she could see every vein in its bloodshot eyes, the crimson sheen of Barrett's blood on the tips of its claws. Barrett rolled away just as those claws came down again, and as he struggled to his feet he spared another glance towards Hayley and snarled. She was choking, and he could tell. The Vigoroth pounded its chest and shrieked, exactly like the one in the forest had, and her knees went weak—
Fear. Fear. It never went away, did it? No matter how many times she stared death in the face.
"Flame burst." Once again, the words trembled as they left her mouth, but this time she made up for it by yelling them louder. "Feint back and flame burst! Get back and hit it!" She wanted to shut her eyes; she forced them wide open instead, staring without blinking as Barrett huffed and slipped back into smoke. He completed the maneuver this time, but as he floated down the field, the Vigoroth was still faster, and the moment he rematerialized the Vigoroth punched him in the throat. Norman wasn't even commanding it anymore, just watching—watching Hayley. His expression was stern, and she knew he wasn't liking what he saw.
Fear of death. Fear of disappointing. Fear of being disliked, of being left alone. Since the moment she'd left home, every day had been some mix of terror and dread. Why was her life like this? Why was she like this?
"Cross chop!" With Barrett struggling to catch his breath after the blows to his stomach and throat, fire attacks were out. They had to win this with muscle alone. Panting and gasping, Barrett stood and crossed his arms, as he always did, to face an impossible foe. But the Vigoroth struck him again in one easy movement, lashing out with a reach Barrett couldn't hope to overcome. Because Barrett had an overwhelming personality, and enough ego and aggression to fill a twenty-story building—but he was still a Magby. And a Magby couldn't win this fight.
Another hit from the Vigoroth, and Barrett fell. Hayley dug her nails into her palms. No. No. They weren't going to lose this. "Barrett. Get up." Barrett grunted and shoved himself up by his arms, every inch of him trembling. The Vigoroth stood over him, chest heaving.
Fear. Barrett pinned by a rogue Zangoose that was lifting its claw for the killing strike. Hayley staring down that same Zangoose's trainer as he shoved her against the wall, hand squeezing her throat. Staring down a Graveler in a dark passageway of Granite Cave. Staring down a Trevenant that was ready to swallow her whole. Staring down Amaya and her two Mightyena as Amaya strung the cavern with explosives. Staring down Reese in the lobby of the Slateport contest hall.
"Get up! I know you can! I know you're strong, so prove it!" Barrett's arms wobbled again, and his elbows bent, sending him back down. He pressed his beak against the clay and snarled, billowing black smoke. Almost languidly, the Vigoroth lifted its arm one more time.
Fear. The world was terrifying.
And Hayley was tired of being afraid.
"Barrett! Get up and fight!"
Light. As the Vigoroth's arm swung down, the field was enveloped in light. The Vigoroth aborted its attack and swung itself back, staring in awe. Inside the light, Barrett's silhouette grew. His arms and legs thickened and extended, spikes erupted from his back, and his stubby tail lengthened and whipped out behind him. Flames burst out even before the light faded away, forcing the Vigoroth to scamper away further with shrill hoots of alarm. And then, as Hayley blinked the spots from her vision, she saw Barrett standing there. Barrett, taller and fiercer than he'd ever been, with gouts of fire spewing from his skull, arms, back and tail. He was hunched over, panting with the exertion of change, and when he straightened up, she saw that he'd gone from being half the Vigoroth's size to nearly a full head taller. He stared down at the Vigoroth, flexed his newly powerful arms, and roared.
"Bulldoze." Norman's voice snapped Hayley back into the fight. Barrett had evolved, but this was still a battle—one that Norman had decided to participate in again. The Vigoroth pounded its chest, howled, and lunged forward, tearing up the field in a shockwave as he went. Hayley's chest seized like before, but—she could control it. With Barrett standing between the Vigoroth and her, she stood a chance.
"Flame wheel." Barrett snarled, and in the blink of an eye, his whole body combusted. No longer did he have to prepare the move—fire was part of who he was. He stomped forward, and his steps were slow and clumsy as she'd known they'd be, but it didn't matter. The Vigoroth's wave of clay smashed against him, and Barrett's flames burned still hotter, blasting it away. The Vigoroth pulled back, but it couldn't move fast enough, and Barrett, fire and fury, grabbed it and grappled it to the ground. He burned and burned, and in moments, the Vigoroth began to shriek in pain.
"Back off, Barrett! That's enough!" He either didn't hear her, or didn't listen. His immolation continued, and the Vigoroth's shrieks rose to a fever pitch as smoke rose into the air. "Barrett! Stop!" Hayley's hand shot to Barrett's ball, visions of Mona flashing in her mind—but then Barrett huffed, stepped back, and drew his flames back in. Hayley's shoulders sagged in relief. And the Vigoroth didn't get up again.
"Leader Norman's Vigoroth is unable to battle! Victory goes to the challenger!"
As fear and adrenaline drained out of her and left giddiness in their place, Hayley chanced a look at the Vigoroth. It wasn't pretty. Its fur had been charred almost entirely black, and painful-looking welts were seared into the visible skin of its face. Norman took out a ball and recalled it, removing it from Hayley's sight, and Hayley bit her lip and shook her head. It was part of what it meant to fight with a fire-type. There'd be more of that in her future.
More important was Barrett, who had turned from the field and was sauntering towards her with a swagger in every step. "Barrett! You evolved!" He snorted, sending out a thin plume of smoke that drifted into her face and stung her nose and eyes. She coughed and waved a hand to dissipate it. "You…" She froze, voice trailing off as she saw Norman walking across the field—not to her, but towards the referee. Oh. That couldn't be good. She hugged her arms and rocked back on the balls of her feet as the two of them conferred in low voices, and Barrett, clearly wondering what had distracted her from his new magnificence, turned to look as well. She couldn't hear a word they said, and it was all she could do to keep a straight face when Norman nodded to the ref and finally made his way towards her.
"A gamble like that won't always pay off, you realize," was the first thing he said. His eyes blazed down on her, scrutinizing her once more. Hayley bit back a nervous laugh.
"I know. I—believe me, I know."
He let out a slow breath through his nostrils. "You came close to an excessive force violation at the end, but I've decided to let it slide. Mid-battle evolutions are difficult to gauge. I assume you have your class two license?"
"Yes. I got it two days ago."
"That's cutting it close." Hayley could only nod her head and fervently wish she hadn't volunteered that bit of information. "Regardless, you'll need to work with your Magmar to gauge his new strength. I recommend at least a full day of training and drills before putting him into battle against anyone else."
"Of course. I was going to do that anyway."
"Good." At last, Norman reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a gray, barbell-shaped badge. "With that in mind, I'll present you with the Balance Badge. Wear it with honor, and always remember the lessons you've learned today as you move forward in your journey."
"I will. Thank you." With that, Norman inclined his head and departed, leaving Hayley alone with Barrett.
He was so tall now. His eyes were almost level with hers, and the flames flickering atop his skull stretched past her own head. And the heat coming off of him was incredible; even the parts of him that weren't ablaze were flickering like a heat mirage. Even standing a respectful two paces away, Hayley could feel the air around her growing warmer and warmer. The sweat now beading on her brow, she realized, wasn't just from nerves.
"You evolved." Barrett grunted, slammed his fists together, and blew a gout of fire out of his back, and Hayley's face cracked into a grin. "You worked so hard for this, Barrett. I'm so proud of you. Together, we're going to go further than ever before. Are you ready?"
He nodded his head and knocked his wrists together. Fight. Hayley was seized with the urge to throw her arms around him, but held herself back, not just because he hated hugs but also because he was now literally on fire. Instead, she hugged herself again, shut her eyes, and gave a mad giggle. They were going to make it. Whatever new terrors loomed in their future, they'd face them down together.