So, apologies in advance. I played fast and loose with time here, and at least in the first half to three quarters of the chapter you probably won't know when we are. This is my fault, but it is this way for two reasons. I couldn't motivate myself enough to actually properly order it, I'm not entirely sure how to do so given how I wanted the chapter to end, and we stay un-beta read.

What's that? That was more than two reasons? Quiet you, I'm a musician, I never learned to count past four.

IRONY

Jokes aside, there is a real reason it's sloppy, read the bottom AN to find out why I'm an ass this time.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy.

Brendan was livid as he tore out of Mauville, May close behind him and Salazar and Usopp the only pokemon still at his hip. Raph and Peris left behind in the morgue at Wattson's gym.

They'd made some good headway, and as far as he knew Julia and Luke had no idea they'd left yet. He was concerned that they'd come storming after him in worry for his health and safety, but that was exactly why he needed to get away in the first place.

Pokemon needed to battle and overcome stronger and stronger opponents to grow stronger. People weren't so much different. They needed to get past adversity to grow and mature. Which meant that his growth would be stunted if he kept getting coddled by Luke. Like an oak tree taking all the nutrients from the soil. Other plants could grow around it, but none could be as great.

It only took a week for the two of them to reach the base of Mt. Chimney, where Brendan made what he decided was his first real catch, a Slugma he named Choji. It was hard not thinking of Raph whenever he gave the fire-slug a command, but he would push through. He wasn't going to forget about his first fire-type, but thinking about him when he had still living team members wouldn't be doing either of them any good.

He and May had started sleeping in the same tent again for the first time since they'd gone ahead of the older pair after beating Roxanne. No older teens, nobody to tease their awkward first steps in their relationship.

Besides, this way they only had to set up May's slightly larger tent, which meant less time getting drenched by the rain that never seemed to go away. Less time in the rain, more time to huddle with his best friend watching movies on her phone? Well, sometimes it was his phone, but either way, it was an absolute win.

Even when he was training, she'd be nearby. Watching from the shade when it was sunny or more often from under a tree when it was raining, if he was exercising, or within arm's length if he was just instructing his team. Either way, knowing she was there made him feel better as he trained. Trained so that none of his pokemon would ever have to face the same fate as Raph and Peris.

Usopp had evolved, frail body becoming a veritable tank of muscle and feathers, wings that could redirect the wind for short periods of time to keep the rain off of his trainer and his trainer's friend. The pelican's diet, similar to his power, had also skyrocketed since his evolution, needing more frequent breaks from training to hunt.

Salazar continued his growth, moving faster and striking harder. Despite his teammate's evolution, he was still by far the fastest and strongest member of Brendan's team. He often defeated the wild pokemon they encountered before they had a chance to retaliate, and the sparring matches with his party-mates were short and often resulted in victories that didn't see him damaged at all.

Choji hadn't been getting trained for long enough to show much progress, but he showed potential. The slug responded to commands well, and executed each one swiftly once he understood what the trainer meant. Which was the one problem Brendan had with the Slugma. He was slow to pick up on what his words meant. The upside was that once he did, he remembered without fault.

At least, that's what the teenager noticed while they were waiting for the sandstorm to clear so they could cross the desert to reach Fallarbor, where Professor Birch asked May to meet with his associate Lanette. Brendan would have preferred going directly to Lavaridge for his fourth badge, but the extra training wouldn't hurt. If anything, it would just reduce the time they would spend in the other city.

All in all, despite what happened back in Mauville, things were going well.

Julia threw herself into training once Luke convinced her not to go after her runaway brother. He told her she had a battle to prepare for, and he was right. A battle against the man who killed her brother's pokemon. Then the stupid, handsome idiot left her with his new friend Keith and vanished. She assumed it was to do some more solo training.

Regardless, she was pissed, and she channeled all of that into training, constantly throwing her pokemon at Keith's team in the three days since Brendan and May had left. As always, Oliver was doing the best, the rock of her team. The strongest, most durable, a verifiable tank of a creature. She loved her aggressive little mudfish.

Oliver was also the only one to really have a leg up on Keith's pokemon. He was strong enough to keep pace with Boss, the older trainer's Muchlax, but fast enough to land more hits than the normal type. Her water-ground type could stomach any of the faster hits from either the man's Buneary or Dewott and dish more back. Her other pokemon weren't keeping up quite so well.

Kord just wasn't mobile enough to dodge hits, or fast enough to land any consequential ones of his own. Zatanna was plenty fast enough, and able to adeptly teleport around the field, but she wasn't quite able to put out enough power to knock any of them down for the count.

Until she started glowing.

Once she evolved into a Kadabra, the psychic fox was putting out more than enough power to knock other pokmeon out, telekinetic blasts that could slam her opponents into the ground or the subtle psychic waves that distorted the other pokemon's senses. She was still incredibly frail though: any physical attack had the chance of dealing critical damage and knocking her out of the fight.

Thoughts of her training flashed through her head as she walked through the tunnel onto Wattson's battle pitch. Keith had talked her through the last minute battle-prep, but now all she could see was the Voltorb detonating on top of Brendan's Torkoal.

The thought sent waves through her stomach, her light lunch threatening to boil over. Until her hands fell on Oliver and Zatanna's pokeballs. The cool metal under her hands centered her. Oliver wasn't quite immune to electricity, but it was darn close. Keith wasn't sure how it worked, and Luke just said something about how it was probably a special insulating membrane in his skin before he'd rushed off.

It was technically a three on three match, but Julia didn't want to risk Kord, and Selena was far from being a battling pokemon. Storm, Keith was probably playing with the kitten in the stands right now.

She walked forward, onto the pitch, and shook Wattson's hand, but she didn't say anything. To her remembrance, Julia didn't emote at all. At least, she tried not to. She couldn't remember if she succeeded, just that she was trying.

Oliver came out first, before Wattson's ball had left his hand. His battle cry sounded as the Voltorb emerged on the gym leader's side.

It wasn't hard to figure out that Brendan and May had left. It was hard to track them down in the forest north of Mauville because of the rain, although the two canines on his team made it significantly easier.

He caught up to them on the first day, staying out of sight with Franz and Rebecca nearby. Brendan was noticeably upset, but not in a dangerous way. The younger boy appeared driven, hiking faster and, at least in the one training session Luke had watched on, training harder with his two remaining pokemon.

Fears assuaged but not erased, the cold boy doubled back to Mauville to prepare for Wattson. If the gym leader was ready and willing to command his pokemon to self-destruct in a third-tier battle? He needed to be ready for that. For anything really. Which meant studying and planning.

When he arrived back in Mauville, Luke immediately went to the gym, into the spectator stands, as close to the field as he could manage. The electric-type trainer had eight matches set for the day: four first-tier, two third, a fourth, and one sixth. The only ones that really interested him were the thirds and sixth. The firsts wouldn't give any information beyond which evolutionary lines he preferred, and the fourth would provide similar information to the third, but different enough that he didn't want his plans swayed by it.

Sixth tier, on the other hand, would just give more information about Wattson. Longer battle, stronger trainers, and better trained pokemon. More information, more insight.

As he took a small notepad and pen from his hip-pack, the Unovan paused for a second. Why was he doing this? He was upset that Wattson commanded one of his Voltorb to detonate and kill one of Brendan's, and that one of his other pokemon killed another of Brendan's. But it felt like more than that.

With a frown, Luke thought of Shigure. The little Taillow that had been fast and energetic, that liked flying circles around their group when they would hike. He thought of Thea and Zander in the Celestial Tower, and the teammates that didn't get to have a burial.

He started writing.

Oliver had always been attuned to Julia's moods, if more aggressive. At least, it seemed that way to the human. Maybe that was just recency bias since she'd been upset and aggressive lately though.

It had taken a while, but Oliver managed to grab onto one of the Manectric's hind legs. A grim satisfaction filled her when the mudfish hoisted the canine over his head and brought it down hard. She couldn't stop the flinch from the dog's ribs and/or leg snapping. That didn't stop her from letting Oliver do it again, before Wattson could recall his pokemon.

The smile on the man's face was infuriating, as though he was happy his pokemon had been beaten nearly to death. Happy to have lost.

When she went forward to claim her badge, Wattson pressed it firmly into her hand. "I saw what you did to Roxanne and Brawly with that squirt of yours," he said as he placed a hand on Julia's shoulder, which she was quick to shake off, "he's got a spark in him, a real fighter. Next gym for you is either flying or fire right? Teach the fish to throw rocks and he might be able to solo either of them too. I'm assuming you're saving your old man for last, and you definitely won't be able to sweep him.

"That's none of your business," Julia said as she turned away from him, "and maybe I am, maybe he's next, it doesn't matter to you."

"If it's what I did to your brother's pokemon, I already got an earful from Norman," he said to Julia's retreating back, "but he needed a kick in the rear, show him he isn't anything special yet. Nobody is at their third badge."

Julia didn't respond, walking away with the dynamo badge clutched so tightly in her fist it hurt.

Luke watched Julia's battle, saw Oliver fight with his trainer's barely hidden pain and anger. Saw the mudfish sweep through the opposition of a Magnemite, Voltorb, and Manectric. He wrote every decision the leader made down, recorded it for later study.

He'd congratulated Julia and took her and Keith to dinner, despite his hand itching to thumb through his notes. The thing that really stopped him wasn't even the friends in front of him, but knowing that everything that happened in her battle was moot for him.

Luke didn't have an electrical resistant tank to hold the fort down for him and sweep Wattson's team. Dart was far larger and physically more powerful, but the smallest shock could spell death and danger for the Gyarados. Rebecca could resist electrical attacks, but didn't have the bulk to take too many, especially if they varied physical and special like it seemed Wattson liked to do between sparks, shockwaves, and rollouts. Franz and Amelia could take a hit or two and dish plenty back, but neither had the super effective ground moves or raw bulk that Oliver had. Sain had less training than any of the others, although he was coming along well.

So instead, he listened to them talk. Well, he listened to Julia. Keith was busy consuming all those calories he needed to keep his muscle mass so freaking high.

He nodded when he needed to, chimed in on a couple subjects, and did his best to smile through it.

It didn't really hit him until he was back in his room, in the building across the street from the suite Julia was currently occupying alone that he'd slipped back into old habits. Selfishly hiding away from friends and focusing entirely on his own advancement. Granted, it wasn't entirely comparable.

When he did it before, it was with B, CH, Bel, and Syd. Technically Dubs too, but they weren't entirely on speaking terms when he did it before. Regardless, the people he'd known for less than a year didn't really compare to his lifelong friends and Sydney.

A dickish way to think about it? Sure. But Luke felt like being a realist for the moment. He just didn't have the connection with them the way he did with his friends back in Unova.

Yet, funnily enough, he had a better relationship with Julia, Brendan, and May than he did with most people in his own family. Definitely his older brother and sister, and definitely his parents. Younger brother was a maybe, younger sister a definite no.

Huh. He was starting to think he might have issues. He should probably talk to someone.

With a sigh, he made his way toward the video phone booth to call Bel, and maybe Dubs.

Was he actually going to talk about his problems or tell them he'd slipped into old habits? Thunder and Snowfire of course not. They didn't need to be burdened down by his issues. But he did need to give Dubs an update on how it was progressing, and he wanted to talk to Bel.

Julia sat next to Keith as Luke walked out from the tunnel onto the pitch. He'd left his hat and vest in the locker room, standing tall in his boots, jeans, and BW jersey shirt. Five balls clipped onto his belt on the right side of his hip-pack. Even from the distance, she could pick out the different balls. Rebecca's nest ball closest to the front and Luke's hand, his Electrike's great ball next to that, then Franz's plain pokeball, Dart's Lure ball, and Amelia's dusk ball.

It was a fantastic line-up being led by a fantastic trainer, but it didn't really have an answer to electricity beyond simply overpowering them. Which scared her when she thought about what had happened in Luke's match with Brawly and then Brendan's with Wattson. Without an easy answer, his pokemon were in danger.

Luke had been an ass in the few days since he'd come back from training, focused entirely on prepping for his gym battle, but she didn't want his pokemon to get killed or him to get hurt.

"There's more than one way to skin a Glameow you know." Keith said as he tapped her shoulder and motioned to where Luke was about to shake hands with Wattson. "He doesn't have that beastly ground-type like you do, but it isn't like his studying and training has been for nothing. He's got this."

"You say that as though you know what his strategy is." Julia said with a frown. "Mind sharing with the class?"

"Nah. Just faith that after all that studying and training he's got something figured out." Keith said as he leaned forward, placing his chin in his hands. "At least, I really hope he does."

"Didn't think I'd get to host the Scout at my gym," Wattson said as he shook Luke's hand, "but here we are. I have to say, I've been looking forward to this match ever since I saw your Gyarados tear Brawly a new one."

Luke's blood ran cold as his eyes went wide and feet frozen. "How do you…" he managed to stutter out, eyes fixated on Wattson.

"My good friend Drayden mentioned you to me after you battled him. Just like Surge told me when your brother went and caused trouble for him. Did you think nobody would recognize you just because you're in a different region?"

Frost take him, the old man looked like he was enjoying this. The Unovan schooled his expression, bringing what he was sure was a stupid look of shock into tight frown. He cooled his surprise into anger and focused it on the man standing in front of him.

"If you know who I am," Luke said, "then you know I'm going to win."

Wattson laughed, "I did just tell you Drayden and I are friends, right? He's seen you lose, and I wasn't granted my title for nothing." The old man laughed again as he turned away, "Don't choke on your arrogance kid. I want a good match."

Luke didn't bother replying. He wasn't sure what he would have said and didn't want to say anything incendiary or impulsive. His right-hand kept drifting towards Bastion, Gojira, and Heracles' balls in his pack, but now certainly wasn't the time to use the three pokemon he'd smuggled into the region.

Instead, he rested his hand on Franz's ball, plucking it from his belt to await the referee's announcement.

He didn't have an easy out here like Rebecca against Roxanne or Dart against Brawly. Which meant his strategy boiled down to overpowering and out maneuvering the gym leader and exploiting the habits he'd picked up on watching Wattson's other battles.

Lights flashed as the trainers summoned their pokemon. The living embodiment of a pokeball and the rough and tumble hyena stood across the pitch from each other.

Franz growl was low in his throat as he stared down the emotionless electric type as it gathered static by rolling in place.

Wattson had four key strategies when he used Voltorb. Play keep away with shockwaves as the ball kept out of reach, follow up shockwaves with physical pressure in sparks, and overwhelm the opponent with a rollout that continuously gained speed and power. Or explode.

Franz grew tired of waiting for the trainers to issue commands and rushed forward, little more than a streak of black and grey as he powered through the shockwave attack. He slammed his shoulder into the electric ball hard enough to send it bouncing and rolling away, although it corrected its momentum before it went out of bounds.

The good thing about the ball pokemon's attack strategies were how linear they were. Franz was durable enough to continue powering through the electric waves to close the distance and tackling or biting the ball. Or, if it switched to either physical approach, Franz was fast enough to react, evade, and counter when they were close to colliding.

There wasn't really counter-play to the explosion strategy.

As the ball shot forward, dirt from the battlefield pouring behind it as it started a roll out, Franz puffed out his chest, stood tall, and barked at the ball. When the attack collided, there was a black streak of Franz's oil across the Voltorb's eyes.

Luke smiled. He'd left it up to Franz if he wanted to use the swagger tactic, and the hyena had. And it worked beautifully. Now there was a chance, however slim, that the Voltorb accidentally went out of bounds of its own volition.

"Detonate!" Wattson shouted from across the field, but his pokemon was too busy trying to flatten Franz to care.

The next pass had Franz get hit again, but getting another shoulder-check in as it tried to roll away. Then Franz, bleeding from somewhere on his head, lunged forward and managed to set his teeth into the electric type, and crunched down hard. Franz started shaking it, slamming it into the ground as it's shell started to crack and black drops of blood started spraying from the orb. Wattson recalled his first pokemon, and Luke did the same.

Rebecca was the next out, facing down the Magneton Wattson summoned.

This one was a bit harder to deal with than the linear Voltorb strategy. It preferred long range attacks combined with status afflicting moves, inflicting short term paralysis with thunder wave and disorienting opponents with the sound waves it generated by rubbing its bodies and screws together. Following that was the pressurized blasts of air and the volleys of shockwave attacks.

The steel pokemon moved first, sending blasts of pressurized air that Rebecca nimbly dodged as she closed the distance, the leaves on her arms glowing green as she brought them across her opponent.

This started a chasing game, the Magneton trying to slow Rebecca down as it tried to float away from the much faster Grovyle. Rebecca, for her part, was too busy dodging and playing catch-up to land many meaningful hits.

Wattson's pokemon finally managed to land a blast of pressurized air, the attack cutting a gash across Rebecca's chest as she went sprawling back, scrambling to her feet to dodge the next one even as she held a clawed hand to her chest to stem the flow of her deep purple blood.

"Go." Luke said, looking his pokemon squarely in the eye. She was stronger than her opponent. He knew that. She knew that.

She was scared and had the look of a half feral rage in her eyes as she dropped to all fours to rush he opponent. The bladed leaves on her forearms began to glow again as she rushed in, sidestepping or hopping over jolts of electricity and blasts of air. It was not going to kill her, because she was stronger. Faster. Had a better human.

It was not going to kill her. Because she was going to kill it first.

The screech the magnet pokemon let out when Rebecca's blades tore through one of its bodies made Luke wince and cover his ears as his grass type pulled her other arm back as well. Wattson recalled his pokemon before it fell. A deep scowl was on his face.

Luke scowled right back as Rebecca ran back to him as he sprayed a potion over her wounds before returning her to the nest ball. If Wattson was willing to go for kills, he wasn't going to hold his pokemon back either. Except unlike Brawly, he wasn't going to wait for one of his team to die first.

"You recalled Magneton first," Luke said after Wattson continued to glare at him, "you have to send out your last pokemon first." It didn't really matter who sent their pokemon out first, they'd both made up their mind about what pokemon they would use far before they ever stepped onto the pitch and sent out their pokemon.

Battles weren't won on the pitch, weren't won in the arena, and often not even in the city the battle took place in. Luke won his battles weeks in advance on the training field, in conditioning and strategy.

The Unovan knew that he was better prepared. No matter what Drayden, Elesa, or any other gym leader from back home told Wattson, Luke was better prepared to fight him than he was to fight Luke.

Luke had studied Wattson's battles in person and the recordings on the internet, and he had the pages of notes to prove it. Wattson had heard gossip, maybe a recording or two from a year or more ago when Luke was using dramatically different teams than he was now.

Sain erupted from his ball only moments after the opposing Manectric. Sain was bulkier than the other canine, electricity crackling across his blue coat and golden mane.

"Sain," Luke said as the two electric types stared each other down, "you're stronger than them." His electric hound's eyes never left his opponent. "And they hurt Rebecca." This brought a growl from the dog's chest.

Luke smiled as the two staked towards each other. Sain was playful with all his other pokemon, but fiercely protective. Did the other Manectric actually hurt his fellow party member? Of course not. Did it matter? Not at all. Now the Unovan could be confident in his pokemon not turning the battle into a play session.

Sain lost patience before Wattson's pokemon and broke forward in a sprint, electricity cracking across his fur as he gained speed. The other Manectric met him halfway in a crash of sparks as Sain bowled them over.

Luke's electric type was stronger than he was fast, and a sprinter over a distance runner. Incredibly powerful in short bursts of intense speed and strength to overwhelm an opponent. And, thankfully, durable enough to take hits and trades from the opposing electric type.

Blue and yellow sparks and fur flew every time the two canines clashed. The snap of electricity covered the sound of their bodies striking each other and filled the room. Luke was sure it was a spectacle to the audience as the sparks always seemed to refocus around Sain because of his lightning rod, that special coat that pulled electricity from his surroundings.

Luke made a mental note to never have the electric hound out in a hospital or around sensitive mechanical equipment.

Finally, Sain knocked his mirror to the floor at Wattson's feet. Luke didn't recall him as he walked forward to shake hands with the gym leader.

The Unovan accepted the badge that was offered and shook the gym leader's hand, and said, "So, do tell. Was that a good enough battle for you?"

So, that was chapter 24. Honestly surprised we're only this far, guess there's a bit much filler already. I have a tendency to do that.

Again, apologies if the sequencing made it hard to get through. The 'real' reason I did it this way is because the time passed differently for each character. Brendan left and was essentially doing the same thing for the whole chapter. Tunnel focus training and being a teenager in their first relationship with May. He was focused in entirely on that. Julia was entirely focused in on her gym battle, and after she won it, on Luke's upcoming battle. Luke was a bit different from the other two: he focused on one thing at a time, but then pivoted between two other points, each of which I decided were important enough to justify diving into. First, on tracking down Brendan and May to make sure they at the very least seemed ok. Then, on battle preparations, and finally on his battle.

As for why Luke battled differently here than we saw in either of his other gym battles? He felt threatened by Wattson, and scared for his pokemon. That fear made him obsessive, which manifested in a manic phase of studying his opponent and attempts to theory-craft how the match would go, then in his mid-fight analysis. First time trying to write someone entering a manic phase, comment on how well you think it came across.

Why didn't I write out Julia's battle? It would have been boring. Deploy Marshtomp. Spam click mud shot. Kate, my friend who did the Nuzlocke run for Julia's character, really did just solo the first three gyms with Oliver. Oliver who was overleveled at this point because Chocolate died and she was scared of getting another one of her party killed.

Level Check!

LUKE:
Rebecca: 28
Franz: 27
Dart: 24
Sain: 27
Amelia: 23
*Matthew: 9

*Cut slave/utility, not on Luke's team in the story rn

JULIA:
Oliver: 30
Zatanna: 24
Kord: 22
Selena: 21

I'll be gone until I'm back again. Stay safe y'all.