"I think I've got a name for you," I told him just inside Oreburgh Gate's exit.

My monferno and I were gradually adjusting to the light after three days of relative darkness. He made a monkey noise that sounded a lot like "Uh-huh?"

"How does Trust sound?"

Monfernos are really good at human speech imitations – he said, "Awww." Guess that was a yes.

We headed straight to the Pokemon Center in Oreburgh to wash up. Trust headed to the pokemon washrooms. I almost asked if he could handle the washing himself, but I stopped, remembering that I could trust him. Sure enough, when I finished my shower, he was waiting in the lobby, fur and skin clean and smelling like roses.

Since Trust and I had been training so much in the last few days, I decided we should take the rest of the day off. I knew we ought to be going faster, but we'd already gone fast enough for Trust to evolve. We could afford this break.

This time, I remembered to call Megan and Tricia at the Pokemon Center.

"DUDE WE WERE SO WORRIED."

"Whoa. I'm fine," I protested, stunned. Good thing I had my headphones in.

"WE LITERALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD OR SOMETHING."

"Ohhh, Arceus, stop worrying," I said, still in shock.

"THREE DAYS AFTER YOU TOOK JUST ONE TO GET THROUGH TWO TOWNS?"

"Tricia, I was training. Trust and I are up against a rock type gym – we needed to train against rock types."

"You named him?" Megan was being calmer about this, although initially she'd looked concerned. Like I'd come online with an ear missing.

"Yeah. He's a monferno now, so the gym will be a breeze. He's stronger than I thought," I told them. "You guys don't have to worry. I won't get hurt."

"How would we know that?" Tricia grumbled.

"Anyway. Have you guys heard from Lucas and Dawn? I haven't seen them since Jubilife."

"Alice said they were battling Roark today," Megan said. "We haven't heard the results."

"Damn, I thought I was ahead of them."

"They'll have to train longer for Eterna though," Tricia pointed out, bouncing back from her initial concern. "It's grass. You've got the advantage after the first gym."

"I guess… The forest is a pretty nice opportunity for training, though."

"Are you going alone through the forest?" Megan asked.

I squinted sideways at the screen. "No, I have Trust with me, and possibly one more by that time." Liana, hopefully. Owen might be around sooner or later.

"I mean humanwise."

"What's wrong with pokemon?"

"Nothing. But another trainer would have more pokemon too, and you know, strength in numbers…"

"Trust is a fire type." Not this again. "Look, I'm gonna go check out his mach punch. He hasn't used it much yet." At all, actually. "See you guys."

"Bye."

"Bye…"

Rather than actually go out and train – hell, he smelled too nice to do training – I took Trust to one of the city's cafés. It was a cheap one, but since the gym was in its vicinity it was respectable. I'd been there before. With Lucas. By chance.

I was daydreaming about him when a male voice behind me inquired, "Mind if I sit here?"

I glanced up and did a double take. Roark – fairly young gym leader, at age 24, still wearing hipster glasses and a rust-colored ponytail – had just walked in. He wasn't wearing his signature mining gear, so I guessed the button-down and jeans meant he was relaxing. "Not at all," I said, gesturing at the seat beside me at the counter. Trust was seated on my other side.

"How long've you been training?" Roark asked, sliding into the vinyl seat.

"Around… four days now?"

"Four days?" he repeated, eyes wide.

"Well, I mean, this is the fourth."

"You already evolved your starter?"

"Yep."

"Did you grow up around pokemon?"

"Not really…"

"I see." He paused. "I thought you trained longer cause you let your pokemon out. Usually that's an older trainer thing."

Oh yeah. I took a look at Trust, who I'd let out without a second thought. "Seems natural to me."

Roark grinned. "Me too. I'm glad you figured it out so fast."

My food arrived – an omelet, basically the only thing I ever ordered at cafés – and Trust received a bowl of sitrus berries. He started munching happily. Roark ordered a coffee and bagel, even though it was nearing 9 pm.

"I heard some of my friends challenged you today," I mentioned.

He nodded and shrugged simultaneously. "Both won with a type advantage. They were interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Yeah. The girl – Dana or Dawn?"

"Dawn."

"Dawn played to speed, rather than power. She might have an issue with Gardenia, whose turtwig's defense is pretty high, but in the long run it's a nice thought. Lucas – right? – I thought he was playing defense, but he found subtle opportunities to get some solid hits. He took two of mine down with just his turtwig."

"Wow, dang." I remembered Dawn fighting in the way he described, but not Lucas.

"Don't take my word on that, though. People change. Styles change. At least they're not doing the newbie thing, the throwing-moves-around one."

Roark's order arrived; he stirred some sugar into the coffee. Trust had finished his berries and was now eyeing my plate. I cut some of the omelet off for him; it was too big to finish, anyways.

"You gonna challenge me sometime?" Roark asked, dipping his bagel in the coffee.

"Probably tomorrow."

"Gonna challenge them?"

He meant Lucas and Dawn. "Uh… Maybe."

"You should go for it," he said seriously. "Friendly battles are one of the best ways to get better. You get to gauge yourself against the same people."

It would be painful challenging Bree. And with Rhea now being the pokemon of a trainer I'd spent a month mourning, I wasn't sure how well that would go, either.

"Something up?" Roark asked, pausing with his coffee halfway to his mouth.

"Nah."

"I can tell," he insisted. "I'm not Lucian, but that doesn't mean I can't be a little psychic."

I sighed. "It's complicated."

The coffee mug made it to his mouth. "I had to challenge my father when I was starting out as a trainer," he said once the mug was back on the counter. "He was the Oreburgh gym leader back then. His first pick was his shieldon. Probably the second most brutal thing he's ever done, after running off to Canalave. I grew up with this shieldon. There's literally a picture of me and that shieldon running through a meadow of daisies. Having to fight him stirred up a bunch of conflicting emotions, from 'I can't fight a friend!' to 'Dad, holy–'" He swore here. "…er, sorry."

"It's okay."

"At any rate, I could've beat him pretty fast, but I had to overcome worrying about that shieldon first. When I did, it was a matter of minutes."

"Moral of the story…?"

"Don't hold yourself back. Your friends will understand, and battles are voluntary for the pokemon. You'll have to overcome inhibitions like these at some point, if you're going to be successful."

Roark went back to dipping his bagel in the coffee. Trust tried to sneak away another piece of my omelet. I pushed the plate over to him.

"If you don't mind me asking, why're you telling me all this?" I wanted to know.

He smiled. "Part of my job, as gym leader. And… something's different about you. The way you treat your monferno already, even though you're new."

Roark finished his coffee. "I'll see you tomorrow…?"

"Evelyn," I offered.

"See you then, Evelyn." He took the rest of the bagel with him and headed out the door.

"Nice meeting you," I called back.

Around ten minutes later, we walked out. I was still hungry cause Trust ate most of my food, but whatever. Hunger is a trainer's survival skill.

"Evelyn!"

I looked toward the voice – Dawn! They'd caught up?

"We thought you'd be halfway to Eterna by now," she said ruefully. It was just her right now.

"Oh, nah, I spent a few days training in the caves. Sorry I rushed ahead. I did want to join you guys."

I was sorry. Not exactly for the reasons I implied.

"We could join up now. We're off to Eterna tomorrow," Dawn said.

"I haven't fought the gym yet…"

Her eyes widened. "After training for three days?"

"Yeah. I've got a fire type. I figured I'd get him to learn mach punch first."

"Ohh. How's that gone?"

I glanced at Trust, who padded over to a nearby rock. "We haven't quite gotten there yet."

He threw his fist at the rock as fast as he could. And squealed, cause punching a rock – or a wall, for that matter – hurts.

"Darn it, Trust."

"If you battle Roark tomorrow morning, we could wait for you," Dawn offered.

"That would be great."

We wound up sharing a room in the Pokemon Center that night. Lucas and I ended up in there at the same time, in our pajamas (Trainers tend to have a separate sleeping set of clothes, cause traveling clothes are hard to wash every day. Some carry around rotations of things like shirts or underwear so they don't stink by the next town. Clothing becomes a strategy. Don't get me started on formal wear.).

"What happened to your knee?" I asked, noticing a bruise running across his leg.

"Fell off a cliff."

I angled my head, waiting for him to continue. His eyes sparkled, telling me he was going to leave it at that.

"What happened to your knuckles?" Lucas asked, noticing the scabs.

"I punched a wall."

He raised his eyebrows. I raised mine back at him. He doesn't tell me, I don't tell him. Fair is fair. Lucas broke eye contact first, which disappointed me. I hoped he would tell me still.

"Were you okay on Saturday?" He changed the topic

Trainer selection day. "I – yeah, I was fine. Why?"

"You seemed kinda dazed."

"Oh. I guess."

He didn't press it. It was sweet how he'd noticed.

"So how's being a trainer so far?" I asked him.

Lucas shrugged. "Good. There hasn't been much so far."

"Oh. Yeah."

I tried to think of a good conversation topic. What was there to say?

"Do you want to meet Trust?" I asked finally.

"Who?"

"My monferno."

Mild shock on his face – intensified by his usual lack of emotion. "It evolved already?"

"Yeah, he did." I tossed his pokeball without protesting the incorrect pronoun more than that. "Haven't gone to the gym yet, though."

"Why not?" He held out a hand to Trust, who shook it.

"We just got here. Figured we'd take the rest of the day off."

Lucas looked towards me, still holding Trust's hand. "Was it that tired?"

"We were out for three days. Didn't want to take on the gym in less-than-optimal condition." I met Trust's eyes and smiled. "Not that he needed it, exactly."

"Pokemon Center healing."

"It's not the same. Heals injuries, not exhaustion."

"I thought it did."

"Not completely. Maybe 50%."

"How do you know that?"

I paused, remembering: this wasn't public knowledge. I figured it out myself. Owen – my arcanine – ran from Solaceon to Celestic Town in a day, and when I sent him to the heal center, he came back no longer winded or battered, but still exhausted.

"Someone told me."

"Ah."

I wanted to trust Lucas. Everything lying under my tongue that wanted to escape was in such easy reach. And here I was, and the only thing blocking me from trusting Lucas was the five-foot gap between bunks and one monferno ironically named Trust.

To be fair, it was more than that.

Dawn walked in, her hair already blown dry and brushed. "The gym opens at ten. We can head out when you're finished battling."

"What if I lose?" I asked.

She shot me an amused look. "You've got a monferno. It'll take ten minutes, tops."

"Eight," Lucas cut in.

"Seven."

"Fifty Pokés on six."

"Wow, no pressure, guys," I said, raising my hands by my head.

"No deal, I'm leaning toward six, too," Dawn said.

"Sixty on five," Lucas countered.

Dawn shook her head and said, "Fine. Evelyn, don't battle too fast."

"No promises."

By then it was eleven. Dawn turned out the lights.