Ah, the Battle Tree. This place was starting to feel like home. Charizard dropped me off and I immediately walked toward the entrance. Guzma was standing there and I walked over to him.
"Hey, Claire. I got us set up. You ready?" He asked me. I nodded.
I showed the receptionist that I was using Xi-ir and Kartana. She let us through and we began our battling.
Bisharp and Kartana were still doing really well at just anhialating other pokemon. We made it to 17 wins again this time. It was a Noivern that we ultimately failed against. It wasn't great.
We walked to the bottom of the Tree. "Hey, what's the deal with your Xurkitree?" Guzma asked. I shrugged at him with a confused look. I didn't get it. "I mean, why did you give it a Dawn Stone?" I shrugged again, nervously smiling.
We got to the bottom of the tree and I walked off to the side. I brought Xi-ir out. It towered above me. I motioned it to bring it's head down near me. I walked to the white light closest to Xi-ir's head on its left 'arm' and untied the Dawn Stone that was there. It was watching me as I did this. I could feel it was a bit worried. I walked to its head and tried to speak telepathically to it. That didn't work. As I was trying, Guzma walked over and looked at the Dawn Stone.
"I was right, this is my Dawn Stone! But why does this thing hold it?" He asked.
I shrugged and patted Xi-ir on the head. Then it nudged my arm with one of its copper 'hands'. It was trying to get to the Dawn Stone. I handed the stone to Xi-ir, and it stood up and stared at the rock for a minute. It gave the rock back and leaned down for me to tie the stone back onto the wire. I wrapped it around the bottom of the light, then walked back to its head to feed it some Poke Beans.
"So, it just really likes the Dawn Stone?" Guzma asked. I nodded. "Do you even know why?" I shook my head. "Huh. Take care of that, okay buddy? That's Claire's now, and it was mine, so you better not break it." Guzma told Xi-ir, receiving what I could only guess was a nod of agreement. This got a confused reaction out of Guzma, which didn't seem to make much sense.
It was impossible to tell whether Xi-ir understood English, or any human language. I knew I couldn't speak telepathically with it yet, the most I could get was general emotions it felt, but it seemed to understand Guzma in some way.
"Guess we better get back to battling, huh?" Guzma asked. I shook my head this time. "Oh, you got something else to do. Alright. See you next time, Claire." He waved and I waved back.
I called Charizard and it brought me to Mount Lanakila. I brought Roar out as I walked into the Pokemon Center.
"So, how'd it go?" Roar asked.
"We lost again." I answered as we walked to the cafe.
"Hello, miss. What would you and your Decidueye like?" The man behind the counter asked. I ordered two Roserade Teas.
"You didn't try to tell him at all?" She asked.
"Hell no." I answered. My mindvoice was somehow deadpan.
"Here you are, ladies." The man placed our drinks in front of us. I smiled at him, gave a thumbs up, then my face went expressionless as I waited for Roar to say something.
"Do you plan on it?" She held her cup in full meme material mode.
"I'll have to write it down to tell him." I said, taking a sip of my drink.
"Yeah, that sounds reasonable." Roar shrugged and started drinking her tea.
"What else coukd I do? Make a heart with my hands and hope he connects the dots?" I asked.
"That's probably the only other thing you could do. Other than straight up kiss him, and I know you wouldn't do that." She laughed.
"Damn right I wouldn't!" I laughed. "I totally would if I was, you know, stupid."
"Yeah, and you wish you were, too, huh?" She laughed, this time outloud.
"I can't hide anything from you." She and I laughed for a bit.
Once both of us finished our tea, we headed to the Pokemon League to defend my title, which, by this point, was not hard. No one said anything of interest, necessarily, and I battled with Plumeria at the top. She seemed to be doing pretty well. She got a Z-ring and everything. I wondered if Guzma had talked to her at all since Team Skull broke up. I would've talked to her, but she seemed to have better things to do. Either way, my title was defended.
Charizard brought me home. I walked into my house and saw mom cooking lunch. I went into my room and Roar followed. She must've gotten out of her pokeball herself this time. There everything was, exactly the same as when I first started my adventure. You would think that I would have unpacked everything by now. I looked inside the box next to my bed. There, somewhat scuffed up, was the empty journal my dad left me with before this whole thing started.
"Unova, huh?" Roar asked.
"Yep. It's almost been nine whole years." I let out a silent sigh.
We ate lunch and I rushed back to the Battle Tree. I found a nice area in front of a wall to sit in and compose my confession. Roar sat next to me and talked to Ro-Dex.
"Hey there. Hope you don't mind me askin' what you're writing." Guzma tried to look at the notebook.
I pulled it closer into my body and finished writing the last sentence. I held the book out to him, but only after shoving Ro-Dex into my bag. Roar retreated into her pokeball and I suddenly felt so alone. I buried my face into my hands and waited for Guzma's response.