By the time Hayley left the gym with badge, TM, and prize money in hand, she'd already texted her mother, Miriam, and Connie about Barrett's evolution. Reactions were mixed: Miriam had sent back a disaffected "cool, gg," while her mother had replied with a long-winded congratulations that not-so-subtly reminded her to be careful around Barrett's new power. Connie, for her part, had forwent texting entirely and called Hayley on the spot, forcing Hayley to spill more and more details as she squirmed under the gaze of the increasingly annoyed receptionist. But no description Hayley could give was able to satisfy Connie, and Connie demanded they meet up to watch the match the second it went online.

It wouldn't be long until it did. Gym battles, unlike tournaments, weren't streamed live; squadrons of Porygon cut and edited the footage in real-time, but a human official still had to review and approve the final video. Normally, matches would go out within half an hour of ending, unless something really awful happened during the fight—like Corbin's Taillow. Sure enough, Hayley's video went up while she was still waiting in the Pokémon Center line to hand her team over for a post-battle checkup. And the reason she knew it had been uploaded was that without warning, her phone began to buzz with more texts.

The first was from Chad: "barretts insane! where r u going next? im in lavaridge and we need a rematch." Hayley stared at the message for a while, startled, but just as she began to type out a reply, another message came in. This time it was from Howie: "Congratulations! You and Barrett look like you're working well together. You should still probably avoid any wild Vigoroth, though." Then one from Kei: "Grats on the evo! Ceres' water pulse is coming along great too. I had to close my eyes near the end though, lol."

Stupefied, Hayley completely forgot to move ahead with the line, and the trainer behind her bumped into her and grumbled. She quickly stepped forward, and as she did, her phone buzzed again. Now it was Skye: "Cool fight! I knew Barrett could do it! There's no way to get Sherry to learn flame charge, is there?"

Still bewildered, Hayley reached the front of the line, handed over her three balls, and rattled off the relevant information—Barrett had just evolved, Sen probably had a concussion but wouldn't want the healing machine, and Ceres mostly needed to be checked for bruises and dehydration. But she barely heard herself speak. After the nurse checked her in and waved her off, Hayley went over to the side of the lobby, sat down in one of the few empty chairs, and stared at her phone some more.

Barrett's evolution was huge, sure, but she hadn't expected anyone outside her group to care, much less to seek out her gym battle and watch it happen. None of her classmates had sent her congratulations after Roxanne—though that might have been because she'd ghosted them all first—or after Brawly—though that might have been because they were all still reeling over what had happened to Corbin. Still, why…?

After all this time feeling like everything around her was dragging her down and everyone was trying to force her to quit, were some of her classmates actually rooting for her?

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

While her team was at the Center, Hayley made good on her promise and went to Connie's house to watch the match. Connie met her at the door, bursting with excitement, and practically dragged her up the stairs to her room while Marcie followed behind them. Five days had passed since her hearing, some of them good and some of them bad; today was clearly a good day. Even the bruises layered on her arms from separation therapy sessions looked lighter than usual.

Five days had also passed since she'd officially captured Anima. Under duress, Connie had introduced her to Addison and Skye, her therapist, and finally her parents, and if the responses to Barrett's evolution had been mixed, the responses to Connie adding a Shuppet to her team had been overwhelmingly negative. Skye had shrieked in terror from even seeing her over the phone, Addison had recoiled in disgust, her parents had cried, and her therapist had apparently given her a long talk about the dangers of relying on outside forces to manage her emotions. But the more she was told it was a bad idea, the more Connie had fought back, and since she was once again a trainer, nobody could force her to give Anima up. For better or worse, she'd be with her for the long haul.

Now, in the bedroom that was several degrees colder than the rest of the house, Anima made herself known. She flew out of the floorboards and into Hayley's face, cackling madly and expanding herself to twice her usual size. Hayley, who had been on the receiving end of this twice already, managed this time to constrain her reaction to a flinch. Apparently, the best way to deal with a Shuppet trying to get a rise out of you was to just pretend they weren't there. Anima circled Hayley's head a few times, twisting her body and keening out bone-chilling wails, but when Hayley continued to pointedly ignore her, she snapped back into her usual form and went to sulk by the ceiling. Her cloth base clung tightly to the plaster of a shadowy corner, and her bulbous head lolled, hanging her upside down like a malformed Zubat.

"You shouldn't be rude to her like that," Connie said. "She just wants to play, you know?"

"She wants to eat my fear."

"So? It's not like it'll hurt you." Connie hopped onto her bed, and Marcie spun and teleported next to her. She picked up a remote and pointed it at the TV on the opposite wall. "Everyone's got to eat. Ugh, why is the League streaming app so ugly? They should take some pointers from the PAC."

Connie had sat near the head of the bed, and Marcie had sat in the center, meaning that if Hayley wanted to sit down, she'd have to deal with Marcie being between them. The stare Marcie was fixing her with now told Hayley that this had absolutely been intentional. Lacking any other options and wanting to keep the peace, she went to sit at the foot. She must have still been too close for comfort, because Marcie clung tighter to Connie and glowered. Anima snickered from her perch. On the TV, the Pokémon League splash screen was already queued up. Connie pressed play.

Hayley hated seeing herself on camera. She hadn't watched the recordings of either of her previous gym battles, despite numerous veteran trainers claiming that doing so was key for self-improvement, because the recycled embarrassment was too much. She was awkward on the screen, she was awkward watching herself on the screen, and the more she watched, the more she wanted to curl up and hide and never show herself in public again. Connie's video of her and Ceres fighting Marcie had been bad enough, but at least they hadn't used professional-grade equipment. On the League cameras, Hayley swore she could see every sweaty pore and every tremble of her hands.

"This is a third-tier gym challenge between Hayley Summers and Leader Norman…" Ugh, and people had watched this? Had she always looked that sloppy in those old shorts? Why hadn't she combed her hair? Norman, of course, was as confident and put-together as ever, and when the screen split in half and showed them side by side, it was all Hayley could do not to bury her face in her hands.

At least when the cameras focused on Sen, things got easier. He really was an incredible fighter; the way he moved with assurance and grace without a single wasted gesture made Hayley's heart swell with pride. He'd been strong and quick even before joining her team, but now that his movepool was expanding and his tactical knowledge was growing, he was a force to be reckoned with.

Still, both Hayley and Connie winced when the Spinda forced him to slam his head onto the ground. "You really should have recalled him, shouldn't you?" Connie said.

"I wish I could have. But he would have been pissed." Belatedly, she realized she'd never actually explained that reasoning to Norman—he probably thought she'd just choked. Oh well. She'd get another chance to prove herself if she ever went back for an Ace badge.

Ceres' fight was unbelievable, now that Hayley was seeing it outside the fog of battle. She'd come so far since Hayley had first pulled her out of that cage in Rustboro. Connie gasped at the volume of water she'd managed to pull up while under assault from the Spinda: "That's some incredible focus. Even if she didn't feel herself getting hurt—Marcie would never be able to work through that uproar." Marcie, offended, narrowed her eyes and crossed her thin arms.

"She's gotten really good at focusing on just one thing and blocking everything else out. I kind of want to teach her to multitask, though, so that she can protect and water pulse at the same time." Or protect and confusion. Or protect and disable. Or disable and confusion, or confusion and water pulse—right now the only things Ceres had to work with while maintaining a mentally-intensive move were water gun and headbutt, and that was going to become pretty limiting pretty fast. But even with the work they still had ahead of them, Hayley was thrilled at how much she'd progressed in a few short months.

Then the Vigoroth came out, and Hayley cringed as her image on the screen grew stiff and terrified. Arceus, she really had choked. Connie didn't say anything, but Hayley could feel her glancing her way, along with Marcie and Anima. Anima's body rippled with excitement as the onscreen Hayley's mistakes mounted and the real Hayley's embarrassment grew. She should've told Barrett to detect away from the Vigoroth's first façade instead of being vague, she should've made sure he was further away before ordering him to use a slow move like smog—and she shouldn't have stuttered, damn it, that had almost lost her the fight right there—she should've known his feint attack would be too slow to outrun the Vigoroth, and—

She should've lost this fight, shouldn't she? The realization hit her all at once. If Norman hadn't disengaged himself and let his Vigoroth start playing with Barrett like a toy, Barrett would have been knocked out well before reaching his threshold to evolve. But instead, Norman, not knowing how close Barrett had been to evolution, had decided to shame her by letting her lose to an opponent that wasn't even trying.

The camera zoomed in on Barrett, and light filled the screen. Beside her, Connie squealed. Hayley leaned forward and clamped her hands over her knees.

To think of it another way: Norman had accidentally let her win slip through, but if she hadn't lost her composure, they could have lasted longer even without him toying with her. Barrett could probably have gone for at least another minute, and he could have landed some more hits on the Vigoroth before ending up on the ground. He might have even been able to evolve without being beaten to within an inch of unconsciousness. And Hayley wouldn't be so humiliated right now. Like everything else about gym battles, it was a lesson: keep your head on straight, or risk losing a battle you otherwise could have won.

Even with all those thoughts rolling around in her head, watching Barrett's evolution from this vantage point was spectacular. The way he lifted his head and roared, the way his flames erupted with such heat that the picture on the screen shimmered—he was amazing. There was no other word for it.

At last, the Vigoroth went down, and Connie leaned back and sighed. "Wow."

"I know."

"You're going to Mauville next, right? I don't think you're going to have any trouble. You could probably roll up and melt all Jin's Pokémon right now."

"Maybe. But I still want to train more first." Mirroring Connie, Hayley sat back against the wall. "Jin still makes me nervous, and besides, I promised Sen he could take the fight against his Metang. And we definitely need more practice before that can happen."

"I guess that's smart. But you're really not tempted to try, not even a little?"

"No way. Losing to Roxanne three times was bad enough; I don't want to go and lose to Jin, too."

As she thought about Mauville, a question sprang into Hayley's mind. It was another one of the ones she'd been avoiding, but that she now had to ask or else risk things going terribly wrong. She licked her lips. Connie and Marcie, both sensing the change in atmosphere, turned to look at her.

"Connie. You're going to be in Petalburg a while longer, right?"

"Right. Probably another few weeks. Marcie and I still have some more—more sessions to do." A shadow passed over her face, but she quickly hid it with a smile. "Why?"

"I was just wondering, do you want me to stay here with you? I could—"

"No." The answer was so sudden and decisive that Hayley almost felt offended. Seeing Hayley's expression, Connie quickly added, "I mean, don't want you to hold yourself back for me. I don't want what happened to ruin things for you."

"It wouldn't be ruining anything, and you wouldn't be holding me back. I can train for Jin in Petalburg just as easily as I could in Mauville—"

"No you can't. You've already fought, like, every single trainer here; Mauville has a million more people for you to battle."

"Okay, so it wouldn't be perfect, but I could still—"

"And you told Barrett you'd take him out traveling on a route. And you told Miriam you'd stick with her as a training partner, and I know she won't stay here any longer than she has to."

"If I explain it to them…" But her voice trailed off as Connie's words sunk in. Dammit, she'd tied herself up in promises again, hadn't she? And now doing right by Connie meant doing wrong by Barrett and Miriam. "This is important," she insisted anyway. "They'd have to understand."

"Hayley, I don't need you to stay." Connie smiled again; a small but genuine one this time. "I've got my parents to help me, and my therapist, and Marcie, and Anima. And it's not like you'll be dropping off the face of the planet. We can still call and talk."

Calling and talking hadn't been any use over the first three months of their journey, though. It was so easy to hide things over the phone. "It still feels like I'm leaving you alone. Even with everyone else here, it…"

"We can call every day," Connie insisted. "We won't let it drop off this time. And I'll tell you whenever something's bothering me, I promise. I—I'm just going to feel really guilty and bad if you keep putting everything on hold for me, and I know that's not what you want."

"You shouldn't feel guilty. None of this was your fault."

"I know, but none of it was your fault either. And you have to trust me when I say I'll be okay."

It felt like Hayley's fault. She was the one who'd dragged Connie out alone that night; she was the one who'd made her upset and driven her away; she was the one who'd decided not to run after her. Connie had said to leave her alone, that night, and she was saying it again now, and if Hayley chose to listen this time too, who was to say that it wouldn't lead to something equally terrible?

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

As Hayley stayed silent, Connie spoke up again. "I'm not just going to be sitting around here and moping. I'm actually going to be pretty busy soon. Clarissa's been getting a little better, and they're talking about transferring her to a hospital here in Petalburg, now that she's stable. And when they do, I want to be there for her just like Addie and Skye have been. She's going to need a lot of help."

"That wasn't your fault either," Hayley muttered. "Clarissa, I mean." Connie's eyes dimmed.

"I know. But I still want to help. Just like you do, I guess."

Anima detached herself from the ceiling and swooped down in front of the bed. Connie waved her off. "Not now, Anima. Later." Anima scowled and slipped into the shadows under their feet.

After a long minute, Hayley spoke again. "You really think it'll be okay? If we just call every day?"

"I think it'll be fine. And if you get worried, you can always come back. You can get to Petalburg from Mauville in a day on the bus."

"True." Hayley sighed. "I just… wish I could split myself in half. One half of me stays with you, and one half goes with Barrett and Miriam. You know?"

"I know exactly what you mean. But obviously, you can't."

"Yeah." With a heavy heart, Hayley stood off the bed. "I'm going to be in Petalburg for a few more days either way. I need to get Barrett used to his new body, and there's some stuff I want to buy now that I have money. So if you change your mind before I leave, just let me know, okay?"

"I won't change my mind, but okay. And… thank you."

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Miriam was not happy at the idea of staying in Petalburg for a few more days. "What the hell? I thought we could leave as soon as you beat Norman."

"I told you I'd have things I'd want to do afterwards. Didn't you listen?"

"Yeah, but I thought you were like, making excuses so I wouldn't be mad if you lost and we had to stay here another week. You actually have shit to do?"

"Yes. I told you, I want to get a gene test done, and get a nutritionist consult. And I need to train with Barrett to make sure he won't burn the whole route down by mistake."

"Ugh." Defeated, Miriam clicked her laptop lid shut and slid it off her lap. Zero's ball, connected via a cable, lit up and pulsed as the Porygon transferred back into it. "How long do you need?"

"It shouldn't take more than a couple days. Three at most. We can still leave by the end of the week."

"And you can't get the gene and nutrition stuff done in Mauville?"

"No. It'd be way more expensive there."

Miriam grumbled. "Wish I could be buying things. I've got all this cash and I can't spend it." Miriam, Hayley knew, was saving her prize money to take classes at Jin's gym, just like Hayley had done in Dewford. Yuna would be able to learn some new tricks there, and with the gym's technological focus and electric-type legacy, Zero and Xena would benefit too. After muttering to herself for a few more moments, Miriam shot her head up. "Hey. Friends trade favors, right?"

Hayley blinked. "Uh, that's not really how it… You know what, sure. Why not. What do you want?"

"I want to catch some Magnemite on the way to Mauville. Three of them. If you'll have Barrett help me do that, then we can stay here a few more days."

"Magnemite?" Hayley's eyebrows shot up, and Miriam became immediately defensive.

"Yeah, Magnemite. You have a problem with that?"

"Magnemite are fine, it's just—you already have Xena and Yuna. Are you planning on becoming a specialist? Or a dual specialist, I guess?"

Apparently confident that the Magnemite family's worthiness wasn't being called into question, Miriam backed down. "Yeah. I mean, maybe. I've been looking into it, and it's supposed to make it easier to get sponsorships and stuff down the line. And it gets you a discount on gym classes, so it'll help me out in Mauville even if I decide not to stick with it. Plus, electric and steel are just better than all the other types."

Discounting the last point, this was way more thought than Hayley ever seen Miriam put into anything that wasn't "how to beat Roxanne into the dirt." "Huh. So, electric and steel?" Miriam nodded. "What are you going to do about ground-types?"

Her expression darkened. "I beat Roxanne with just Xena, didn't I? I'll figure something out. So will you help me or not?"

"Sure." She didn't even have to run it by Barrett first; she knew he'd be all too happy to prove his strength. "It's a deal."

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First order of business: getting Barrett used to his new form. There were plenty of ways to help a Pokémon "break in" their evolved bodies, but they all boiled down to repetition and practice. Barrett had to learn how to coordinate his new muscles and how to regulate his new massive flame organs, and Hayley had an idea for how to do both.

The next morning, after an evening of celebration and rest, Hayley headed down to the practice fields with her team's breakfasts carried in her arms. They'd have to have their meals outside now so that Barrett could join, and given that Barrett now ate a ton, this was a little inconvenient. Hayley struggled not to drop the precarious tower made by Barrett's giant bowl of pellets, Ceres' smaller bowl balancing on top of Barrett's, and her granola bar and Sen's oran berry resting atop Ceres'. In the back of her mind, she knew it was going to be impossible to carry more than a day or two of this amount of food on the routes, even with saddlebags; she was going to have to bite the bullet and buy special, expensive high-density pellets whenever they traveled.

Because she needed Sen's cooperation for her plan, she let him out first. As she described what she had in mind, he initially resisted, as she'd expected he would—after all, she was asking him to share something he considered to be his and his alone. But by appealing to his maturity, and subtly implying he'd be able to prove he was still better at something than his newly-evolved teammate, she eventually won him over. He'd agree to be a teacher, just for a little while. With Sen on board, she released the others and let them get to the business of eating.

She still wasn't used to how tall Barrett was. Or how fiery he was. She'd gotten into the habit of releasing him a couple feet away, but if she tried that now, her eyebrows would get burned off. Instead, she had to lob his ball a little way into the distance and let him vent his flames before he could come anywhere near her. He would get better with practice, the internet assured her; once he got control over his respiration, releasing him would no longer be like throwing a live grenade. That control was part of what they would be working on today.

"Listen up, guys," she said, once everyone was close to done. "We're going to do a special training session today. Sen's going to help us learn some yoga." Ceres blinked slowly and, after a moment, bellowed in excitement; meanwhile, Barrett gave a scoff that sent a plume of flame towards the ground. "Barrett, be nice. Sen didn't have to do this, but he agreed to help you out with your new body. It'll let you get used to your muscles and get control of your breathing." This time he snorted, and a cloud of smoke blew out and settled over Ceres and her food. Ceres rumbled a complaint. "See? You might not think you need it, but you do, or else things like that will keep on happening. The better you can control your smoke and fire, the longer you'll last in battle, and the more I can keep you out of your ball. You want both of those things, right?"

He began to growl, but cut it off when the flames on his head doubled in size and smoke once again billowed out of his nostrils. Hayley gave him a pointed look, and Barrett waved a clawed hand to dissipate the smoke as though he could pretend it hadn't happened. "Right. We'll get started as soon as you're done eating."

Hayley arranged them on the field so that she was in the middle, Barrett was to her right, Ceres was to her left, and Sen stood in front facing all of them. Obviously, Ceres wouldn't be able to pull off most of the poses, but Hayley had told her to follow along by lifting one of her legs as high as she could into the air whenever they took a new stance. Hayley had also taken some of the lighter resistance bands and looped them around her ankles and wrists. Barrett was going to struggle far more than she did to match Sen's movements, and she didn't want him to get discouraged, so she was making herself artificially clumsy.

Sen started off by standing tall and still, which Hayley assumed meant he was still deciding which pose to begin with, but then he grunted in annoyance, and she realized that this was a pose. She quickly matched him, but apparently not well enough, because Sen dropped his stance and came over to nudge her feet close together. Barrett, with his bowlegged frame, couldn't actually get his feet to touch each other, and after a bit of grumbling and gesturing back and forth, Sen relented and went back to the front, apparently deciding that this was as good as he was going to get. Ceres, who had been keeping her front right leg outstretched the entire time, was starting to tremble with exertion at this point, but she didn't put it down again until Hayley reassured her that it was okay to switch if she needed to.

They held the pose for a little while, with Sen taking deep, exaggerated breaths and Hayley following along. After some more cajoling, Barrett finally condescended to join the breathing exercises too, sending pillars of fire out of his back with each exhale. "Try to keep your fire in," Hayley told him. "You should be able to close off some of your chambers so the gases don't get out. It's like breathing through your nose instead of your mouth." Barrett grumbled, but on his next breath, the flames were just a little lower.

When they'd all mastered the complicated art of standing still, Sen lifted his arms overhead to bring them to the next pose, and they started the whole thing over again. And on it went, with lunges, squats, bends, planks, and all sorts of other stretches and contortions. Owing to both the resistance bands and some of the unfamiliar movements, Hayley tumbled over more than a few times, and so did Barrett. Sen, displeased with their performance, ran them through the whole thing a second time, then a third. By the end of the third round, all of them except Sen were panting and shaking. Sweat was pouring down Hayley's face, Barrett's breath was acrid and smoky, and Ceres could barely lift her tired legs an inch from the ground. But they were getting the hang of it, and Barrett's flames were smaller than they'd been before, even if it was just from exhaustion. Hayley would call it a win.

"Thank you, Sen," Hayley said, once she was breathing normally again. "This was a huge help. I really appreciate it." And then, in a fit of inspiration, she bowed to him, the way Drew had taught her to do after classes in the dojo. When she came up again, his eyes were wide, and she briefly worried that she'd done something wrong—but then he put his hands together and inclined his head back to her, before turning and moving away to begin his own routine.

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Second order of business: spending Norman's prize money. The sum she'd gotten for winning was more cash than Hayley had ever had at once in her life, and it was burning a hole in her pocket. It was time to buy some things that were long overdue.

First, Hayley sent Barrett, Sen, and Ceres' scan profiles off to a geneticist, and the results confirmed what she'd long suspected—both Barrett and Sen had been sired by a member of the Machop line. It explained their martial prowess and outsized upper-body strength, Barrett's cross chop, Sen's foresight, and their respective struggle with control over their fire and psychic moves. She was definitely going to have to teach them more punches in the future to take advantage of their lineage. Ceres, meanwhile, came back as nearly one hundred percent Slowpoke, but there was some Psyduck that had gotten mixed in several generations back. That meant it might be possible to train her to use the pain from battling to strengthen her psychic technique, rather than weaken it, but the effect wouldn't be very strong, and Hayley had no idea how to go about practicing it without basically tormenting her. She filed it away as something to think about later.

Next came a full workup for her team at a Pokémon health and nutrition center. The physician there took measurements and blood samples, ran them through simple exercises, and watched demonstrations of their fire, poison, water, and psychic attacks. Ceres preened under his ministrations and attentions just as she'd done at the spa, and Barrett tried to act aloof while simultaneously flexing his new muscles. Sen, for his part, just did what he was told and stoically waited for it to be over. Apparently her team was in excellent physical shape, which made Hayley flush with pride, but of course, there were always things to improve on. He gave her several pointers for improving the efficiency of their bodyweight exercises, resistance exercises, and cardio, and printed off a list of suggested nutritional supplements. Everyone was recommended to take calcium and protein for bone strength and muscle growth, plus B-vitamins for focus. For Barrett, there was also iron and vitamin A, which, along with the B-vitamins, would increase red blood cell production, allowing him to circulate more oxygen to fuel his flames. Ceres ought to be given potassium, magnesium, and sodium to avoid electrolyte imbalance from water production, and Sen was prescribed a multivitamin that would make up for some of the nutrients he was missing from his restricted diet.

Sen, of course, wasn't thrilled by the idea of eating anything that wasn't his single berry per day. But Meditite on the trainer circuit needed more energy than wild Meditite, since they spent more of their day battling and training and less time meditating. She'd explained this to him, and he hadn't been convinced, but he'd begrudgingly agreed to try supplements for just a single week. After that, if he felt they were hurting his growth, she'd have to throw them out.

With a dozen pill bottles and a week's worth of specially-formulated high-density trail food weighing down her bag, and her trainer account nearly empty, Hayley headed for her final stop: the trainer supply store. Her tent and sleeping bag were still somewhere in the maze of Petalburg Woods, and the time had finally come to replace them. She picked up ones that were simple, light, and cheap, since she didn't plan to spend any more evenings than she had to on a route—keeping Barrett regularly fed away from a Pokémon Center would bankrupt her. She also got another set of flame-resistant clothes to add to the ones her mother had got her, new gloves to replace the ones that Barrett had gradually burned holes into, and human and Pokémon medical supplies to restock her first aid kit. Finally, she purchased a bigger backpack to carry everything. Barrett would be able to carry his own food once he got a better handle on his fire, but for now, Hayley didn't want to risk all those expensive pellets going up in flames. She was stronger than she was when she'd first set out anyway, and a little taller. She could handle a little more weight.

She rang up her purchases, and just like that, all her money was gone. The notion made her stomach twist, but she wasn't too worried. Mauville had the biggest trainer scene in Hoenn, and Barrett had more than enough power to carry a three-badge fight. Sooner or later, she'd make it back.

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At last, it was October twenty-first, and Hayley was fourteen years old. Her birthday had come on so suddenly that she'd almost forgotten about it. There was so much to do now, every single day of her life, that any dates not related to training or Connie had almost lost their significance. But her mother had remembered, and when she opened the door to her house, there was a cake ready and waiting. Connie was there too, along with Marcie, though Anima was nowhere to be seen. Miriam, who hadn't expected any of this, stepped behind Hayley and balked.

"I thought this was going to be, like, a quick goodbye and you'd be done," she muttered. "You didn't tell me there'd be cake and shit." Hayley just shrugged.

"I know the two of you are heading out, but I hope there's time for a quick celebration," her mother said. "You ought to eat something today besides Center food and trail rations."

"Do I have to sing?" Miriam asked, still coiled like she expected the cake to leap up and attack her. Hayley's mother smiled.

"Not if you don't want to."

They brought the cake outside so that their teams could join in. Each of the humans took one piece, and the rest was divided among the Pokémon. Sen and Zero obviously didn't eat any, but Marcie took a small piece, Yuna took two, and Barrett, Ceres, and Xena each took one as well, though Barrett and Ceres needed some prompting. Ceres apparently struggled to recognize the cake as food, while Barrett poked the frosting with a suspicious finger and growled when it stuck to his scales. Eventually, he settled for lighting his slice on fire and tossing it into his mouth all at once. Xena and Ceres (once she had figured out that it was in fact food) ate enthusiastically, making a mess, while Yuna was surprisingly reserved, taking dainty bites with her real mouth instead of swallowing it in one bite with her second jaw. Hayley wondered if that meant she didn't like it, but according to Miriam, it was the opposite; Mawile saved their actual mouths for the foods they really liked and used their jaw for everything else.

The party, such as it was, didn't last very long. Miriam was acting like one more hour in Petalburg would send her into anaphylactic shock, Barrett was raring to test out his flames, and even Hayley was antsy to get going. It had been four months since she'd last camped on a route, and she wanted to do it again. Ferries were fine and all, but camping between towns was supposed to be what real trainers did, and she was eager to prove she still had it in her to rough it. She knew it was definitely time to go when her mother started getting misty-eyed, the same way she had when Hayley had left on the first day of her journey.

"Your team is so strong now," she said as Hayley hugged her goodbye. "Both of your teams. I know you have what it takes to beat the next gym. But remember, if you need to—"

"I can always come back," Hayley finished. "Yeah. I know." She nodded and smiled, and her mother ducked her head and let her go. Then Connie came in for a bone-crushing hug of her own.

"I'll call you tonight," Connie said. "And every night. I promise. And if I forget, then you can call me."

"And you'll—" She dropped her voice. "You'll tell me if anything's bothering you, this time?"

"I will. Now stop worrying and go." She dropped her hug, then spun Hayley around to face Miriam, who was standing off to the side with her eyes awkwardly fixed on a point in space. "Go kick Jin's ass."

"Connie, language!"

"Sorry, Ms. Summers!" As Connie laughed apologetically, Hayley walked up to Miriam. Once more, she looked over her shoulder grinned, and waved goodbye.

And with that, Hayley and Miriam left Petalburg City for a second time.