A/N: Honestly, I'm impressed I made it 58 chapters without missing the deadline I set for myself, lol. Curse you, insane work week and a chapter that was surprisingly difficult to write, despite its low word count! Anyway, enjoy the chapter! Most of it is implementing a time skip and setting up for the next chapter, which should be a lot more straightforward to write, at any rate.
Things moved far too quickly and far too slowly at the same time for the next couple weeks. The storm fizzled to nothing by the time the four of us were escorted out of the Power Plant by Oleana and her team of Macro Cosmos guards. We were given an address of a hotel a few blocks away and an unceremonious goodbye from Oleana before she shut the doors behind us, locking us out before any of us would have even thought about re-entering. We checked into our rooms and gathered in one to watch whatever press conference Rose was planning, but I passed out on Marnie's shoulder before he stepped up to the lectern to begin his speech. We awoke the next morning in a tangle of arms and legs – turned out Hop, Victor, and Marnie weren't able to stay awake much longer than me either. I asked them what Rose had said in the presser, but Marnie just grumbled and pulled herself out of the puddle of trainers to go get some breakfast.
The presser, it turned out, was hardly informative. "Rose basically just said they're postponing the League tournament and extending the deadline to get all eight badges," Victor told me, yawning. "He barely even mentioned Eternatus; only said that the Dynamax Storms were caused by 'experiments gone awry' at the Power Plant. He said that more information would be given 'at a later date,' but you and I both know that it's hardly going to be all of the information."
Hammerlocke, meanwhile, was completely trashed. Dynamax Pokémon had run rampant for a couple hours, and this time, the city didn't have the benefit of a team of gym leaders to corral them. Hop tried over and over again that first day after the storm to get ahold of Raihan, but he was completely unreachable. Even his massive social media presence was void of content, an occurrence so rare that a rumor spread quickly that he had died in the storm, despite his presence at the press conference the night before. After two days, he finally posted a livestream, where he apologized for his absence, explaining that he was recruited by Rose and Leon for rebuilding and restructuring the city and its power grid, and as such, he had cancelled all gym appointments for the next month. This created a fervor among the remaining gym challengers, many of which had not even had the opportunity to face him yet, but with the extended deadline set by Rose, any controversy dissipated as soon as the internet found something else to talk about, as it usually does.
At any rate, not one of the four of us were particularly interested in continuing the challenge, and it seemed like the Gym Leaders weren't either. Bea and Melony cancelled all gym appointments for a week to help aid Hammerlocke as well, but even Gym Leaders who kept their gyms open were hardly busy with any battles of their own. With nowhere for the four of us to go, Victor suggested we head home to Mum in Postwick. Mum was thrilled, of course, and the way he had brought it up felt like it was all her idea in the first place, but after a couple months of roughing it across Galar, I was happy to be home in my own bed.
The four of us convened at the Hammerlocke Train Station three days after the storm. Rose had still said nothing publicly about Eternatus, and Leon still hadn't gotten back to Hop about whatever he needed to tell us, but rumors were starting to spread that we had been involved with the storm somehow, so we had to dodge stares as we said our goodbyes.
"You know you're welcome in Postwick at any time, whatever Mum says," I said, pulling Marnie in for a hug.
"I'll definitely crash once or twice, believe me," she replied. "But I think I need a little family time m'self." She let go and fished a small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper out of her bag while Morpeko scurried between my legs in a goodbye nuzzle. "An' here, I think you might make good use of this."
She handed the parcel over to me and I flipped it around in my hands. "Never woulda figured you to be the gift-giving type," I smirked.
"Well, I can't have you fallin' too far behind me before the league starts," Marnie replied. "Come on then, open it."
I ripped through the paper and found myself holding a cardboard box that rattled softly with each movement of my hands. I pulled at the lid and looked inside to see, lying on top of silky fabric, a long steely-looking bone, sharpened to a point at one end. I ran my finger down it in awe; it was cool to the touch, as if Marnie had been keeping the box in a refrigerator. "Marnie, this is beautiful," I said. "But what am I supposed to do with this, open letters? Who even writes those anymore?"
Marnie snorted. "It's not for you, you prick," she laughed.
"But you gave it to me."
Marnie rolled her eyes and smiled. "I was sure you'd figure it out, but I'm sure your brother could help you out. Dunno why I'm dating the dumb twin." I opened my mouth to talk back to her, but her lips were already on mine. Just then, a whistle blew; her train to Spikemuth was almost ready to depart. "I'll be trainin' in Spikemuth with Piers and Team Yell," she said, pulling away from me. "You're welcome any time."
"You as well," I said breathlessly.
"I'll text you," she said. "Come on, then, Morpeko. See you all!" And she bounded off to her platform, Morpeko skittering behind her.
"No lovesick staring," Hop smirked. "We gotta get to the other end of the platform." He quickly dodged a smack from me, and I chased him across the station, Victor close behind.
The train pulled into the Wedgehurst station as the sun was just starting to set in the sky. It was as far as the line would go, so outside of Victor, Hop, and me, there was hardly another soul on the train. The conductor smiled at us and waved, and I made sure to keep my head low in hopes he wouldn't realize that the last time he saw us was when Victor and I trashed the luggage car in our battle with Team Yell. Victor followed quickly behind me, pink in the face, and after a quick stop in the loo, Hop led us out of the station and into Wedgehurst proper, where his mum and ours had gathered a surprisingly large welcome party composed of nearly everyone from Wedgehurst and Postwick, each of them excited to meet us and our teams. Lots of people hung around to congratulate us on our wins so far, but it all started to ring hollow quickly, as the only people any of us wanted to see were Leon and Sonia, and both of them were noticeably absent. Eventually the crowd petered out and we followed our families to a lone parked car, where Hop's mum shuttled us all back home.
From that moment on, everything moved a lot slower and a lot quieter, but we managed to keep ourselves busy otherwise. As it turned out, Sonia had missed our welcome-back do because she fell asleep after pulling an all-nighter. In an apology-filled visit she quickly recruited Victor to help her comb through all sorts of data that I could not begin to understand in the Wedgehurst Lab. Leon still hadn't come to Postwick from Hammerlocke, and though he would still be able to call or check in, Hop quickly surmised that Rose was keeping him there for some Eternatus-related reason. The longer Leon stayed in Hammerlocke, the more Hop worried. We tried anything to get his mind off it. First, we started having daily training and sparring sessions, to great success as well. Hop's Corvisquire, happy to be with an attentive trainer once again, even evolved into an inky black and quite imposing Corviknight, and after some sparring sessions, I'd call out Flygon and the two of us would both take to the skies, flying in and around our small towns, happy to get out of our houses.
Soon enough, though, we all began to grow bored and restless, and when Victor got a surprising call from Honey at the Isle of Armour, he jumped at the opportunity for a change of pace and booked a Corviknight there as quickly as he could. He described something about a "final trial" involving him and Kubfu, but I was too grumpy that Hop and I weren't extended an invitation as well that I didn't pay too close attention to him. Hop was a bit more positive about Victor leaving to go and train, so after a couple weeks and a fresh set of strategies, he and I headed back up to Stow-on-Side, meeting up with Marnie along the way, where this time Hop overcame Bea's attacks with ease. Excited from his victory, he hopped on to his Corviknight and flew straight to Ballonlea to challenge Opal. Marnie had no interest in going near Ballonlea or Glimwood Tangle ever again, so we spent a couple days alone in Stow-in-Side together. We tried to venture to the Dynamax Statues, but Macro Cosmos still had it completely closed off. They had even found the hole in the wall Marnie had led us through first. That, paired with the stink eyes given to us by the Macro Cosmos guards standing about told us that it probably wasn't worth looking into any further, and when Hop returned the next day proudly wearing his Fairy badge, we said goodbye to Marnie and planned to meet up with her and Victor whenever Raihan would be accepting gym battles again.
Upon returning home, Hop and I continued our sparring sessions with renewed vigor, but quickly we all lost momentum as at this point, as word from Hammerlocke dropped to nothing entirely. All the news we would be able to get was the occasional text from Leon saying that everything was alright. Zacian and Zamazenta didn't come calling for either Hop or me, so any dread the two of us had about Eternatus quietly started to peter out. Victor still kept a close eye on the goings-on of Galar from off in the Isle, but no stories seemed to correlate with Eternatus' return.
And so, after two weeks, I found myself alone often. For the first time in months, I didn't have Victor, Hop, or even Marnie at my side on a journey, and I still had far too much time on my hands than I had grown accustomed to. I used the time to wander Postwick and Wedgehurst with my Pokémon. Cinderace was always jubilant and excitable, and he loved all the attention anyone would give him when they crossed paths. Bewear was a little too intimidating to all but seasoned trainers and battlers, so when I was really feeling the solitude, I'd walk with him acting as a bit of a bodyguard.
But most often, I found myself wandering the streets of Postwick with Sneasel. She was still fairly skittish, especially around people or Pokémon she didn't know, but ever so slowly, she and I started to bond. When Hop and I were still sparring, she quickly began to prove her worth in battle. Her lightning quick movement and previous battle experience was a little jarring, and she didn't want to trust me at first, but by the end of the first week we had figured out a pair of fun little combos that I was anxious to try out in a truly fierce battle.
And there were a fair amount of those as well. Now that the season was drawing to a close and only seven gym leaders were available for battling, the remaining trainers were starting to get restless. In the weeks after the storm, the exclusive 7-badge club began to grow, and soon about a quarter of the remaining ninety trainers had gotten seven. No one had quite been able to snag all eight, even the ones that had managed to beat Raihan before the storm; the other gym leaders made sure of that. Once a challenger had acquired seven badges, gym leaders were allowed to go all out on them, and even Milo and Nessa, the lowest seeded leaders, were handily beating almost anyone who challenged them. The only exception there was Piers, who had Marnie do all the thrashing for him before a trainer could step foot into the gym. So those with seven badges started to travel around, battling anyone they could possibly find. A lot of them came to Postwick, with full and varied teams of five or six, hoping to knock me or Hop down a peg. I was always happy to accept a challenge, but Hop even grew bored of the battling, as surprising as it was when he turned down his first challenge since Hammerlocke.
"I'm just not into this all right now," he said with a shrug.
"You're just saying that!" the trainer bluffed, smirking.
"Gloria would be happy to kick your arse," Hop sniggered, not even bothering to look back. I ended up taking the challenge, and Hop was correct; I did enjoy beating him.
I found him afterwards, underneath a tree near his house. "You alright?" I asked.
"Er, I've been better, honestly," he sighed.
"No fun beatin' weak trainers when Leon isn't here to watch you?"
"Somethin' like that," Hop grinned. "But you know what's worse?"
"What?"
"All this—this nothing that's happening!" he cried, flinging his arms out in a wild gesture towards the crisp fall skies of Hammerlocke. "We what, encounter ghost legends or whatever those bloody dogs are, fight through multiple natural disasters, witness the revival of the thing that almost caused the end of the world and now…nothing?"
"It is rather anticlimactic, isn't it?" I laughed, taking a seat next to him and leaning against the bark of the tree. "And right after Zamazenta finally started talking to you, too."
"Yeah, I've heard about ghosting, but this is ridiculous!"
"Well, Zacian's been pretty quiet, too," I grumbled. You'd think with how incessant she was, she'd at least check in now that Eternatus is alive, right?"
"I've got half a mind to go into the Weald and find 'em ourselves," Hop grumbled.
"Well, what's stopping us?" I asked.
He looked at me and slowly, a grin spread across his face. "Gloria, you can't be serious," he laughed. "Last time, Lee had to pull us out himself. Can you imagine what would have happened if Vic and him hadn't shown up when they did?"
"Well, we know what Zacian and Zamazenta are now, so that helps. Plus, we have a whole—"
Hop laughed. "Oh, come off it, Gloria, I'm obviously not gonna say no to the first interesting thing that's happened since we came back! Besides, they told us to come to them if we want information or anythin', I say you and I call their bluff." He quickly stood up and extended his hand to me.
"Wicked," I said, grabbing his hand and letting him pull me onto my feet as well. "Should I find Sonia? Bet she'd kill for some field work, don't you think?"
That night, Hop, and I stood just outside Hop's house, waiting for Sonia. Naturally, I had fibbed to mum, telling her I'd spend the night there, so we kept as quiet as we could. Each of us carried a full belt of well-rested Pokémon at our hips, and I held Rapidash's ball in my hand, ready to call her out as soon as we disappeared far enough into the Weald.
"You think we should wait any longer?" Hop asked.
I glanced next door, to where Mum's light was still frustratingly shining through the window. "Yeah," I said. "I don't think she'd notice us if we left, but that light's worryin' me."
"Vic's still gonna call her as a distraction, yeah?"
"He'd better," I whispered. "Mum catching us is scarier than anything Zacian could do."
"Right," Hop snickered. "Oi, Sonia's comin' up, now!" I turned to see that Sonia was jogging up, her red hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She waved, and as she did, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. A text from Victor. Perfect timing.
Calling her now. Try not to die ok?
I nodded at Hop and just as Sonia stepped up next to us, and before she could even say a greeting, I gestured that the two follow me. We crept out underneath Hop's house, then Victor's house, and soon we were right at the gate leading into the Slumbering Weald. Since Hop's and my little excursion, it had been chained over and refitted with a shiny new lock.
"Allow me," Sonia said with a wink and tossed out a Pokéball. A tall, elegant looking Pokémon materialized in the dark and stalked over to us with long knees that glistened like pink rubber boots in the pale moonlight. Long leaves billowed down the Pokémon's head like voluminous locks of hair, and it came to a stop next to Sonia.
"Since when did you have a Tsareena?" I gasped.
"What, you really think I tried a gym challenge with just Yamper? Come on then," Sonia grinned. "Trop kick, girl!"
With a swift kick and a loud clank, Tsareena delivered a blow that completely crushed the lock. The three of us glanced around, but no one in the nearby houses seemed to notice. I could see Mum's shadow in her bedroom window, laughing about something.
"We're in the clear," I whispered. "Let's move!" I didn't have to tell them twice; Hop and Sonia were already undoing the chain and within a minute, we had all slipped through the gate. Sonia closed the door behind us and after each taking a deep breath, we all stepped into the Weald.
A/N: Don't ask for Sonia's whole battle team, I haven't thought about it at all. I just knew she should have something else besides Yamper if she is an ex-challenger, and apparently she has a Tsareena in Pokemon Masters, an app I downloaded once, played fifteen minutes off, and gave up entirely. Anyway, I think it's time we finally see the two legend pups face to face again, don't you?
NEXT WEEK: THE CHAMPIONS OF GALAR