Even though I'm in my fleecie and the sun is blaring down on us, I keep catching myself shivering. And Athena keeps looking at me funny.

We're out behind the pokecenter, out of sight behind a thicket of trees, and I'm trying to explain my idea about the light.

"It takes time for you to gather it all together, right? So you're slow and maybe someone can attack while you're doing that. But could you make a small ball of it, real fast?"

Athena cocks her head and stares at me. I don't think I look so bad. Maybe my eyes are a bit puffy and pinkish, but that's not Athena's business. We're here to train.

She's the one who stood waiting outside my room this morning, like we had an appointment.

"Could you do that?" I ask again, a bit sharper than I should. She should stop looking at me like there's some dark blue cloud she can see floating around me.

Athena spreads her feet and closes her eyes, a spark of light flaring between her paws. When a ball only the size of an oran berry forms, she lobs it off at a nearby tree trunk. Only, it doesn't hit. In the air, the light bursts and comes apart.

"Okay." I frown as I look at where the light had been. "So it has to be big to keep together? Or can you sort of keep it together the same way you made it?

Athena's eyes widen and I see she's thinking hard. After a moment, a warm gray rises around her. I can try.

"Lena!"

I'm watching Athena so closely, I don't notice my name until it's called again.

"Lena!"

I look up and see Walter. He's dressed even fancier than normal, shirt crisp and whiter than white, and his tie straight like an arrow.

My chest goes tight. The air around Athena spikes a muddy pink.

"Hey," I say, kind of stiffly. I can see real vivid in my head him running off down the road and Tanya laughing. That was only a few days ago, but it feels completely distant, like a flick I'd watched back home.

"Did you see the morning paper?" Walter's face is flushed. I shake my head slowly. "No? There was an expose, on the daycare, the one right around the corner. Apparently, they've been spiking the pokemon with steroids, completely untested stuff! Who knows what the health effects are. And I sent Athena there!" His chest moves up and down like he's been running.

Oh, I think. Stel.

"You didn't know," I say without thinking. It's true. At least, it's not false. Except my mouth keeps on moving and I say, "But you didn't ask, either."

His face goes slack. "I —"

I shouldn't be mad at him, 'cause no matter how smart he talks, Walter's dumb about the things that matter. But it's back again, this hot, horrible feeling that makes my mouth go sour and my whole body thrum. Athena's ears prick up and she takes a small step away from me.

"'Cause you could have asked, right? Anyone could've. Could've asked them what they do there to make pokemon strong. Could've asked Athena whether she wanted to go in the first place."

With effort, I jam my mouth shut. If I talk anymore, I'm gonna shout, and Mom's always said it's better to say nothing than to shout. Athena and Walter are both staring at me, like I'm something on display. I'm sick of being stared at like I'm the one not making sense here.

I force my mouth into a thin smile that hurts my face and start to walk away.

"Wait —" Walter says behind me, but I don't want to wait. I walk more and more quickly, not even sure where I'm heading to. I don't want to go to the pokecenter, where people can find me. Instead I head into the town, keeping my head low and my hands tucked into my fleecie. I feel exposed just walking down the street and when my eyes catch a flash of red, my stomach twists so violently I think I'm going to be sick right there.

"Help me," I say real soft to Champ. I know he hears me, because his tail goes straight and his head lifts. He sniffs the air twice. Then he sets off down the street and I follow.

The bakery he leads me to is small and filled to the brim with yummy smells. I pick out a big cookie with the bright yellow face of a pikachu, and a smaller cookie for Champ and Sammy each, and I nibble at the edges, thinking maybe if my bites are small enough, this cookie could last me forever.

Sammy doesn't say anything, but she finishes her cookie quickly and then pushes her way onto my lap, where she begins to make a loud, steady purr, per paws kneading against my legs. I move my hand again and again over the soft fur of her belly and try to match my breathing to her purring.

The woman at the counter doesn't pay us any mind. She's watching a small tv set up in the corner that's showing the final round of a pokemon musical. A minccino with a red parasol faces off against a zebstrika in a sky-blue bowtie. I put my cookie down and watch.

When the zebstrika is declared the winner, the shopkeeper lets out a sigh and changes the channel. A small jolt goes through me. The screen shows the red roof of the daycare, surrounded by jennies. One is flanked by two herdier, their noses pressed to the ground.

The shopkeeper lets out a whistle. "That's some drug bust. And in our quiet little neck of the woods, too."

I wonder if she wants me to respond. My mouth is dry and my eyes are fixed on the screen, trying to convince myself what's happening there is real.

I did that.

My legs feel kind of shaky when I finally get up to leave. The sky is already starting to dark and pinken. The door to the pokecenter slides open and I look around the lobby, half expecting to see Athena there waiting. But she's not.

"Lena, there you are!" Stel swoops out from the hallway leading to the cafeteria and grabs my arm. She's wearing a formal navy blazer and skirt, and her is up in a tight bun. "I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"Sorry," I mumble, avoiding her eyes. "I was training."

"Well, don't be sorry." Stel looks me over. "Let's eat dinner. You haven't eaten yet, right?"

I shake my head silently and follow Stel into the cafeteria. We're still early: most of the benches are empty. I fill my plate up with mash-potatoes and sit down facing Stel at one of the two-person tables in the far corner of the room.

"You've been busy." Stel breaks the silence.

"You too," I offer through a mouthful of potatoes.

Stel laughs. "Oh, just a little. Things got moving pretty fast once I had an eyewitness for the jennies." Her face goes solemn. "I'm glad you called me, Lena. Very glad. But I'm also a bit concerned. Tanya wouldn't explain to me how you were involved with this. If you're in any trouble, Lena, I can help."

My faces flushes so hot I think I'm going to explode. "I'm not—" I shake my head back and forth. "She gave me this package, see, but I didn't know, because I didn't look, because it's not right to look at other people's stuff, until she told me, and I told her it was wrong—"

I'm talking so fast that my words keep tripping over each other.

Stel holds up a hand. "Take your time. Please. Can you start with how you first met Tanya?"

When I finish telling her, she asks me another question, and then another one—small questions that I can answer, one after the other, until I'm telling her how Champ and I fought Tanya and how we lost.

"And then?" Stel prompts me when I fall silent.

"We talked," I say slowly. I don't want to tell her how I cried or how it felt when Tanya hugged me back for just a moment.

Stel stares at me a long time through slightly narrowed eyes. I squirm a bit under her gaze, remembering the cold way she'd looked at Tanya. But it's not like that now. Her eyes soften and she turns back to her food. "All right, you talked. Guess I don't need to know what you talked about. But you sure gave that girl some new thoughts to knock around her head."

I fiddle with my fork for a moment. My head is all filled up with Tanya's face. "Do you think she—I mean, do you think it will be different now?"

Stel grimaces. "You can't change people, Lena," she says wearily. "I read her the riot act, of course, and the jennies gave her a scare, but she won't be doing time for this, not after agreeing to give written testimony. I hope she takes this as a sign, but, well, you don't just fall into that lifestyle. She's made choices, every step of the way. A pity. Tanya—to you she may seem old. But to me she's still young. And she's young in a very different way than you. Old enough to be cynical, but not old enough to see that cynicism makes a flimsy idol. I couldn't predict for you where her choices will take her."

I look down at my plate, trying to hide my disappointment. I guess I thought that maybe Stel, with all her words, could show Tanya something I couldn't.

Stel sighs. "You can't change people, Lena," she says again.

I'm silent for a while, trying to put words to this thought that's been swirling in my mind since the battle. "Before we fought, Tanya said that the way things are, with the cheating, and with how people with money always beat those without, that none of it could change. Only it did, 'cause we shut the daycare down. She said there was nothing I could do, but there was."

"Yes," Stel agrees, but the cheer in her voice feels forced. She's not meeting my eyes.

"What," I ask, feeling my stomach sink.

Stel purses her lips. "I was just warning you about the perils of cynicism, and here I am …" Stel sighs. "Your friend Tanya wasn't entirely wrong. I'm afraid we haven't ended anything. Steroid misuse is an epidemic not limited to one daycare. It's systemic, born of bad regulation and a system of mismatched incentives and rewards."

I listen to her with my mouth twisting and don't say anything when she's done. But maybe something is happening on my face, because Stel's expression breaks a little, and she pulls me in for a tight, one-armed hug across the table.

"You're a good kid," Stel says, "and you did a good thing. It's not your responsibility to right all the wrongs in this wacked-up world. Stick with your journey and lead your life, and make yourself proud, all right?"

I shake my head, back and forth, and then up and down, not sure if I'm saying yes or no. Or if I'm saying both at once.

But I think, as we quietly finish our food—Stel's wrong.

It's a new thought, and a strange one, because Stel's the smartest person I've met. It doesn't make any sense for her to be wrong. But if there's a single thing I could do that makes a difference —that changes something which wouldn't have changed without me, then Stel's wrong, because I have to do that. I wouldn't make sense if I didn't.

It's not a feeling that has words, but I think it might have a color. And if it had a color it would be a bright, pure blue, like a sky that has no ending.

.

.

When Athena finds me again, I'm eating lunch in the cafeteria. Walter hangs back behind her, like he's not sure whether he can come close.

I feel bad for yelling at him now. It's not Walter I was really mad at, anyway. He was just the one who happened to be there.

Before, when Tanya mocked him, I shouldn't have laughed.

"Hey Walter," I say slowly. "Did you eat yet?"

"I've eaten," he answers quickly, still hovering behind Athena.

"I'm sorry —" I start to say, but Walter cuts me off.

"No, I'm sorry." He's got a strange energy to him, almost vibrating. "I told you about that place, I absolutely understand why you were —I apologize. And actually, what I wanted to say was thank you. Yesterday, you —you helped me see some things that I hadn't been able to see before." He looks at the table. "Um, is it okay if I sit down?"

I nod, watching him as he fiddles with his tie. Something about him seems off. His clothes are all shiny, but his hair's a mess, like he's been running his hands through it again and again.

And even though he's nervous and fiddling, for the first time he's looking at me in the eyes.

"I saw my father yesterday," Walter says abruptly. "He's in the area for a conference. I met him for dinner last night. Over at La Swanna Bleue." He takes in my blank look and waves a hand. "The Kalosan restaurant a few blocks down? It —that part's not important. After we were served our hors devours, he asked me how my training was going and I told him —" Walter starts to laugh, a jerking laugh that comes out of him like a hiccup. Now that I'm really looking, I can see his eyes are wet and pinkish.

Athena steps up quickly behind him and lays a paw on his shoulder. A thick blue light moves out from her and settles over him like a blanket. Walter shoots her a grateful look. Then he sucks in a breath of air and goes on.

"I told him the truth. I'm done." At Walter's side, Athena flinches. "I'm not a trainer. There's nothing about it that I like. There's things I'm good at, you know. Putting down words on a page. Looking at numbers and seeing where they lead. I'm good at things, just not—this. He told me I should take some time, to think it over. But I have been thinking. I haven't done anything but thinking recently." His mouth widens into a helpless smile. "So I told Father I don't care. If he wants me to be strong, fine. I'm not going to be strong like him, not the same way he is. I'll be strong the way that I am."

Walter goes silent. "He looked at me like he didn't even recognize me. I don't know. I don't know if I recognize me right now." He glances at me and his mouth twists into a pained smile. "Sorry—" he starts.

"You're tough," I say. The words escape my mouth without me thinking. 'Cause I can see that Walter's scared. He's scared, but somehow he's no longer fraidy.

I think about Tanya and I think that it's not so easy to say some things, to some people. Even when they're true.

Walter's eyes widen. The muscles in his face work, but nothing comes out of his mouth. "Thank you," he says at last. "I—that actually means a lot to me, coming from you."

I don't know what to say to that. My eyes drop down to my feet.

"It's just funny," Walter continues in my silence. "My whole life, every single step's been choreographed for me. And now I've stepped out of turn and he doesn't know what to do with me. But it wasn't right. It wasn't right for me, but also, I wasn't doing right by Athena," The look he shoots her is pained. Athena turns away and her aura prickles with that same ugly pink —shame.

"It's not your fault," Walter says to her, in a coaxing voice, like this is something he's said before. "You can't make me be a better trainer."

The silence between them is murky. The pink around Athena grows blotches of swampy green.

"We've been training together," I speak up. "Athena and me. She's really smart, 'cause she's not just a good fighter, but she thinks about how she fights, too."

"I know she's been training with you." Walter draws in a breath and nudges Athena in the side. "Well, go on. What are you waiting for?"

Athena narrows her eyes at him. The pinks and greens around her darken into something oppressive. She turns away and lopes quickly from the room.

Walter sinks his face in his hands with a quiet groan.

"What just happened?" I ask him. I don't get the way he and Athena talk to each other, like they're standing together on an iced-over ocean and one misstep could send them plummeting down.

"Riolu are loyal," Walter says after a moment. "They're, well, these days they're bred to be. Athena was raised knowing she'd have a trainer and that the bond with her trainer would be the defining event of her life. And we don't have it. I—I can acknowledge that. But she won't, even though she knows we're not working out." Walter tugs at the cuff of his jacket. "To put it bluntly, Lena, she'd rather you were her trainer, and it's been eating her up all week." He puts up his hand when I open my mouth. "And I know that, and I told her this morning, it's fine. It's good, even. Now that I'm quit on being a trainer, there's no one else I'd trust more, I mean, I think it's the right choice for her. But now she won't even admit it, like she thinks it's her fault!"

I think about this dance we've been doing, me and Athena. Each time she met my eyes, each time she waited for me, like she was asking me a question. And I guess I answered, when I told her we could train together. I guess I made a promise, that was more true than anything I ever said aloud, 'cause it was written into the air all around me.

"I'll talk to her," I say, cutting Walter off. I leave him with Champ and Sammy and head down the hallway, turning the way that seems most uneasy. I can feel Athena in the distance, like a drifting summer storm.

She's seated on the floor of a small storage room, her eyes clamped shut and a white light flickering between her paws. The light grows and ebbs and grows and ebbs, like breathing.

I know she's felt me come in, because the light spikes in her hand and then wisps away completely.

"Hey," I say quietly, and sit myself down next to her. For the first time since my midnight trip, my head feels almost clear. "So, how it seems to me, is that when Walter's finally chosen not to be fraidy, you've decided to start."

My words make her flinch. She looks over at me quickly, then away.

"I get it. Cause I'm fraidy sometimes too. I can go now and leave you moping. Only, Walter told me there was maybe something you wanted to say."

The air around Athena ripples and tumbles. The dark eddies begin to shimmer with tiny stripes of gold. She turns to me, her eyes brave.

I would like to join you. Please.

I don't say anything. I don't need to.

The air around Athena bursts with silver and gold, 'cause there isn't any answer in me, except yes.