I woke up to sunlight creeping into my face over the trees across the river. Arceus, it was late.

"Morning," said Thomas, attaching his sleeping bag to his backpack. Trust nudged his head into my hand. I scratched it, smiling.

"Morning. How's your ankle?"

"It's okay. I wrapped it."

I crawled out of the sleeping bag and rolled it up. By the time I finished cleaning up my things and getting ready to move on, he'd been done for ages.

The day went by about the same as the first two. We talked. I kept dropping hints about my past by accident. We came to the end of my food and I finally asked about the berries – he said he'd lived on berries before, thank Arceus. There was one point where we had to climb up a little cliff – six feet or so – but it wasn't too bad. Mostly because I didn't look down.

It was also training day. There were several hours of treeless sky, in which Trust could practice the beginnings of a flamethrower. Promise raced up and down the rocks on the river, slowly at first, getting faster. Thomas let out Silver to maneuver through the thicker part of the trees next to us.

Another trainer finally crossed our path, but I beat her in a battle easily and we parted in under fifteen minutes.

We kept walking after sunset, because we hadn't found any food since midmorning. Thomas and I had flashlights out, and Trust and Promise – presumably – were asleep in their pokeballs.

"…so what's your favorite berry?" he asked me, in a sort of ironic attempt at conversation.

"Aspear. Yours?"

"Pecha."

I laughed. "When she was a piplup, Bree had an obsession for those."

Silence.

"ARCEUS ALMIGHTY."

"Whoa, calm down," Thomas said, stunned. "Who's Bree?"

"Who's Bree?" I echoed, "Who's Bree indeed? She's Kenna, she doesn't exist anymore, and now I sound insane. Arceus."

I turned away angrily, searching a nearby bush for berries.

Something touched my shoulder. "It's okay," he said.

If only.

"It's ridiculous," I told him hoarsely. "I just… This is so ridiculous. Watching my speech and messing up all the time. I don't even know if it's worth it."

Thomas patted my shoulder and asked if I wanted to call it a day. I said sure.

When we set up camp, though, I couldn't fall asleep. For real this time; I was very certain it wasn't a dream. It wasn't the emptiness in my stomach, either – it was exasperation over trying and failing to hide any and all of my past, mixed with a vague sense of forgetting something.

I focused on the latter. It was night three in the forest. Okay. We were going a little faster than I'd gone last year, surprisingly enough. But then we were both more accustomed to traveling for long hours by now.

I couldn't call home or Megan and Tricia until I reached a city. That couldn't be it. I pulled out Looker's journal and scanned the pages with my poketch light; nothing happened on this day in history. Maybe something to do with Trust or Promise…?

Oh.

We were close to the growlithe pack.

The pack of growlithes Owen came from had been relatively close to the old chateau when I found them. We couldn't be far now – maybe a mile away, max.

I glanced over at Thomas. He was fast asleep.

Maybe…

I mean, no use bothering him. Or wasting his time tomorrow. And I wanted to get a move on.

Sliding out of my sleeping bag, I picked up Trust and Promise's pokeballs. It was a warm night, so I left my jacket behind. I took a spare pokeball from my bag, turned on my flashlight, and didn't look back.

It was as easy as I remembered. My parents and I had come here maybe once before, but it was one of the easiest parts of the woods to figure out.

A tingling sensation tickled the back of my neck. Whirling around, I didn't see anyone. Stupid paranoia.

I kept walking. The chateau came into view within twenty minutes of walking, looming tall and gray over the narrow clearing. Stopping to take a satisfied breath, I scanned for signs of growlithe. I turned around to scan behind me.

There was a giant face.

"GYAH TRUST!"

My monferno appeared, ready to fight the – oops, the ghost type. "Wait, return," I said, pulling his pokeball back out.

The air around them turned an iridescent purple, like they were enclosed in a bubble. Trust whipped his head around bewilderedly, seeing what I couldn't. The gastly giggled.

"Ugh, not mean look," I groaned. "Trust, ember her."

She disappeared before it hit, reappearing behind him and sending a chain of glowing gold rings into Trust's back. He toppled forward, asleep.

"Trust, wake up! Trust!"

The gastly shot a dark crimson beam of energy at Trust, hitting him in the back. I reached for my bag for an Awakening, but of course I'd left my bag.

"Trust, come on…"

He did wake up, but too late – no sooner had he done so than the gastly nailed him with a final night shade, knocking him out.

No one had ever knocked out my Trust.

Red chills sank into the back of my neck and head. "You asked for it," I growled. "Watergun!" I threw Promise's pokeball out.

She wasn't prepared for that one, apparently. But she proceeded to disappear and recreate the mean look bubble for Promise, and then send a pair of too-bright stars at him. Promise stumbled backward, confused.

"Watergun, you can do it."

Promise pulled it off and hit her successfully, but tripped over a rock and banged his head on the ground. Another nightshade hit him.

"Promise, spin."

Somehow this part of the command made it through, and he started spinning on the ground. Not even the gastly could evade the wild streams of water. Battered, she shot out one final nightshade before falling to the ground.

A pokeball shot through the air. I knew I'd thrown it; I wasn't sure why. Thoughts of revenge were still running through my head.

The pokeball twitched once, twice, thrice, done. I retrieved it. "Thanks, Pro–"

A watergun attack nailed my face. "Return," I coughed. I'd forgotten he was still confused.

Between two unconscious pokemon and one barely-conscious buizel, there was no way I'd be able to fight a growlithe pack that night, much less catch one without any pokeballs. Although I had caught a new pokemon tonight – yay…?

Twisting water out of my hair, I started back for the camp.

My poketch said it was one in the morning. It also said I was in Eterna Forest, which made me grumpy.

"Never would've guessed," I grumbled.

Having zero pokemon in any condition to fight turned the night into a war zone. I wasn't afraid of the dark, but logically I knew there were pokemon out there, nocturnal or sleeping, who were viciously territorial. Walking toe-first to minimize the noise I made (not that the pokemon couldn't still hear me), I made steady progress back towards the camp.

The wind suddenly picked up, stirring the forest around me into a sea of whirling leaves. I held still, letting loose bits of foliage brush against my face and arms, until the wind died down a little. Shivering, I picked up the pace, glancing nervously behind me in case any pokemon were there.

Suddenly I was caught. Stuck. Confusion tumbled through my head until I realized scattered parts of me were stuck more than others, like I'd walked head-on into a net that was sticky.

What the literal hell?

Trust was unconscious. As was the damned gastly. Promise was barely there. How do you get someone out of a web with water?

As I stood contemplating my options, the bushes nearby shuffled. An ariados emerged.

Arceus, no time to think, get Promise out–

I reached toward my belt and found the web made reaching back impossible. Further attempts only tangled my arm in the string. "Promise," I said nervously, "Promise, I need you."

The pokeball didn't respond.

"Promise–"

Something flew at me – the ariados, which had been creeping closer, shot a clump of sticky string at the web to my left. She crawled through the web, pulling the mass of web along with her. I figured out what she was doing. I dug my heels into the ground and pulled back, trying to stretch the web out. The ariados circled around in front of me and pulled the web taut, squeezing my ribs. She circled around again, slowly squeezing tighter. I breathed as hard as possible, stocking up on oxygen while looking frantically for a way out.

Pain built up steadily in my ribs as my breaths grew shorter. After five or six loops, my lungs were running out of air and I could find nothing in my vicinity to get me out. My head started to grow fuzzy.

But Lucas…?! I've got to...to...

The restraints around my chest suddenly fell free, cut from the back. I gasped for air, hanging limply from the web. The ariados hissed in displeasure, scuttling towards whatever had cut me loose. Clashing sounds of two pokemon fighting rang through the air, but not for long; one was clearly stronger and more practiced. Running footsteps darted at me, one set faster than the other.

"Are you okay?"

Immediately a chill shot through me, as if I was still in danger. Not him. Anyone but him.

"Evelyn?"

"I'm fine," I said.

Thomas helped Marcassin cut me loose. I almost wondered how a dark-type absol had beaten a bug-type ariados so quickly, but I didn't want to think too hard about how the ariados was probably not even that strong to begin with. Freaking hell.

"What happened?" Thomas asked, once he'd pulled the last of the spider silk off.

"I walked into a web. And ariados don't even make webs." A terrifying thought occurred to me. "They don't even make webs. Someone's out there. The ariados didn't make the web. We have to go–"

"Whoa, easy, you're in shock–"

"I'm perfectly coherent thank you very much. We need to leave fast–"

"Spinarak build webs," Thomas said calmly. "This one might have just evolved. Nothing to worry about."

I calmed down slowly. "Let's get out of here anyways," I said, shaking him loose.

"Do you–"

"No."

We made our way back to camp, a stony silence on my end and a concerned one on his. He shouldn't have been concerned. I could handle myself perfectly well, except whenever he was around.