“The numbers don’t lie. Mr. Azure is very dissatisfied, so what do you intend to do to fix it?”

Sabrina had been called back to the gym by the salt and pepper haired man, and was now being lectured on last month’s middling battle performance. As it turned out, ‘Koga’, Fuchsia’s leader, had surpassed her by quite a large margin. The young Gym leader, however, was having an awful lot of trouble paying attention; her eyes were glued to the window next to her, gaze lost in the garden outside as her mind raced with thoughts and possibilities.

Tonight was the night. The ‘job’ Azure had told her about would take place in mere hours, and she was to lead the assault, followed by a small group of trainers. In the end, she hadn’t been able to refuse. She didn’t even know who their target was. Regardless, she was supposed to meet with Azure after this, get all the details of the mission, straighten out their plan of attack…

And then there was him too. The situation was getting out of control.

“Are you listening?”

Sabrina blinked.

“Hm? Yeah, yeah, so what if Koga did a little better last month? I was leaps and bounds above him the month before, wasn’t I? That’s how it is with us,” she shrugged. “He’s my equal. Sometimes he beats me, others I get ahead. I really don’t get why you care so much about this stupid competition between cities; it’s not like we’ll ever fight each other anyway.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Still,” frowned the man. “Mr. Azure was very disappointed. He said your drop in performance was due to certain… distractions.”

The emphasis he placed on that word finally made Sabrina look at him. She parted her lips to reply, and…

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A gut-churning sense of impending ruin bore down on Sabrina as she made her way back toward the Gym arena, where she knew she would find him. She hated it. The building anxiety felt like a balloon ready to burst, and no matter how much she tried to put it off… She knew the time was coming. This… this was it.

With every step, she racked her brains trying to think of an alternative, a plan, anything. Yet every desperate ray of hope her mind conjured, the mental image of Azure’s cold smile erased almost instantly.

I have to do it.

Her fingers closed around the doorknob, but she found herself unable to turn it. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t do it. It was too much.

Sabrina closed her eyes.

Minutes passed in which all that could be heard was the whistling of rain through one of the cracked windows.

Until finally, with a sharp, determined inhale, the Gym leader opened the door and walked into the caged arena.

…And there he was, making his way toward her with a steely determination on his face. There was no Pokeball in his hand, which she found strange. His gaze was sharp and deadly serious, lacking all semblance of doubt, and his silver cross gleamed on his chest beneath the last rays of sunlight. Sabrina’s eyes, on the other hand, were distant and passionless, as though she were looking at the situation outside of herself, a spectator.

Both trainers stopped a pace from each other.

“We have to talk,” they said in unison.