Ayeeee happy first anniversary of Chance... Or, okay, the first update since the first anniversary of Chance.

Just fyi, my winter quarter is packed-to-the-point-of-questioning-my-sanity, so update frequency is TBD. That being said, I made some progress on plotline planning last night (irony bc I haven't even planned on seeing my faculty advisor yet oops) and I'm so excited for the next chapters!

HYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPE

Anyways. As I was saying, idk how often updates will be, but it's nice having a non-stressful project.

Aight, enough chitchat. Enjoy the chapter~

Quick question.

What the actual hecksicle is the appeal of black coffee?

I ordered one at a diner on the west side of town while waiting. Dawn, Lucas and I had decided to leave an hour apart, just so we'd be sure to separate.

Lucas seemed to enjoy his coffee black, so I wanted to try it. It didn't taste remotely as nice as it smelled. I wound up adding a shitload of creamer and sugar to the drink, and then it was almost bearable.

Black coffee? More like bitterness and pain. I didn't know how he could stand it.

Trust and Promise were eating poffins, giving Hope the sweet ones. Faith was out too until it became clear she couldn't function without spooking other customers.

I checked the clock on the wall. It was 6 now. Dawn had left at 4:30, for Celestic; Lucas left at 5:30 for Pastoria, without saying goodbye. I'd opted for third again because I was waiting for–

"Lyn."

"Looker."

He slid into the seat across from me. "What's so funny?" he asked, noticing me snicker.

"Your clothes are great."

Looker was wearing plainclothes, which I guess meant a floral shirt, green jeans, boots, a backwards baseball cap, and sunshades. The pink ballcap was the best part.

"Didn't want to be seen with you," he said, shrugging.

"Thanks."

"Not like that. I'm trying not to get recognized by… you know."

Galactic. "Right. We'll all be out of here soon, fortunately."

He nodded. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah." I slid the rest of the coffee over to him. He took a sip. "While I was in–"

"Eughhh." Looker made a face and put the coffee down. "What's this?"

"Coffee?"

"Did you drown it in… Whatever, go on."

"…while I was in the HQ, I overheard Saturn and Jupiter talking. They found the joltiks in Eterna, and they say they can just steal energy by staging blackouts anyways."

"Mm. I was hoping the joltiks would last longer."

"It's almost been a month."

"Oh, I suppose that's pretty good."

"Other than that, they said the kidnapping was really just to scare us away."

Looker nodded. "How did Lucas and Dawn take it?"

"Uh… Dawn reacted harder to them killing her pokemon, but she didn't know Lucas had been kidnapped until we both returned."

"How's she doing with the former?"

"She's recovering. She was in a bad state yesterday, but today she was able to train a little and fight the gym."

"And Lucas?"

My heart sank a bit. Lucas and his stubbornness, the angry silence he suddenly had towards me. Lucas and the sharp bruises around his wrists.

"He's not afraid of them," I said.

"That's good." Looker picked up the coffee mug briefly, debated internally, and put it back down. "As for the joltiks… it was more of a deterrent strategy than a move to actually stop them. Our next move needs to be in the other main direction."

"Which is?"

"Stopping the formation of the Red Chain."

"Oh, like the legendaries."

"Yeah. That being said, while the legendary artifacts-slash-pokemon are catalysts to the Red Chain, they aren't necessary to create it, from what we know. So the Red Chain could still be made."

"Any plans for that?"

Looker hesitated. "No." I couldn't see his eyes through the sunglasses, but he sounded almost ashamed.

I took charge. "Do we know what materials are needed for the Red Chain?" I asked.

"We don't. The Lake Trio works, obviously, but that's not Galactic's starting point. I need to look into that before we make a move."

"What else is needed?"

"To make the Red Chain, Galactic pretty much needs the materials, the method, and a place to do it – and legendary pokemon, if they can manage it."

"Any leads on where they're doing it?"

Looker sort of shrugged. "Could be Eterna, could be Veilstone… I really don't know."

"Okay. Well, everything's a work in progress."

"Unfortunately. For now, legendaries. Heatran. Be ready for that. It's in a few weeks, but of course, things could go differently."

"We'll be ready."

Six thirty hit. I gathered myself, my pokemon, and my belongings, and off we went.

Lucas was on my mind. He wasn't any less mad at me by the time he left. I didn't know what else could've been bothering him – was it something I said or did, or something I didn't know I did, or something I was and couldn't help being, or did and couldn't help doing, or…?

We didn't get far the first night. It was like… Once the sun disappeared, my steps slowed and eventually stopped altogether. Normally I'd have kept going for at least an hour or two. Trust and Promise looked back at me in perplexion.

That's not a word. Whatever.

"Let's…" I put a hand on my forehead. Warm. I didn't feel sick. "Let's stop here tonight."

We continued like that the next day – late start, slow pace, early stop at night. It's like I was just going through the motions, tired of everything. I don't know what was wrong with me. I entertained the idea that it was Lucas's fault, but it felt too disproportionate for that.

The next day was overcast, with the cool smell of rain hanging in the air. The freshness in my lungs transformed me from a slugma into… Well, a torkoal, but a fast torkoal.

There was the occasional obligatory trainer battle. This route is known for the double battlers who wait for challengers. Those happened. I won. They felt gray.

We hit the south part of Route 210 the next day. By evening we reached Solaceon. We took the rest of the night off. I doodled in Looker's journal while they ran around.

Hope didn't want to. Or something. She stayed with me. "You should go play," I kept saying.

"Prri," she'd say, snuggling up closer. I would pat her on the head and keep drawing.

The next morning, I decided to show Prom some new moves. I had to look it up, but buizels can learn things like brick break, iron tail, and ice punch. Floatzels can do ice fang, and since Prom had already learned crunch, I figured he could get that one, too.

I taught Prom how to find ice energy in the air (I sort of knew from Jirra, my sneasel, but I also looked it up) and worked with Trust on brick break. I figured if he was leaning towards a slower fighting style, he should build up the strength of his moves to make his hits count. Plus, he could show Prom later.

And then there was Faith.

Faith is sweet and bubbly and a joy to be around, but when you want to get stuff done and/or are feeling abnormally dead inside, she's very difficult. Additionally, today she kept wandering off while I was talking to her.

"Faith," I sighed. "I'm over here."

Faith looked at me and sank underground. Her shadow zipped into the forest. Before I could make up my mind to go after her, she returned and plopped a pile of leaves on my head. I reached up to pull it off – they were short vines and sticks in a messy tangle, as though she'd tried to weave a flower crown of leaves. Faith was grinning at me. I shook my head, smiling. It was hard to actually get mad at her.

Mid afternoon, after school was out, I called Megan. When she picked up, Tricia was onscreen with her. It was a classic case of let's-talk-to-Tricia-and-continue-to-keep-her-in-the-dark. For example, I mentioned that Lucas was mad at me, and she asked why.

Because he got kidnapped – which you didn't know – by Galactic, because we've been fighting them – which you didn't know – because otherwise they'll kill Lucas and destroy the world – which you didn't know – and I know this because I time-traveled back from an alternate reality in which they pretty much did just that. Which you didn't know.

"I… don't even know," I said, feigning exasperation.

"Oh. Well, don't worry, he'll probably get over it."

Classic. I wondered how long I could get away with telling her nothing at all.

Ugh. She's one of my best friends, I know, and I couldn't tell her because it was like telling a twelve-year-old about sex ed. Like even if they want to know, and you kind of knew at their age, you can't stand being the one to spoil their innocence, you know what I mean?

The next day was more of the same: training, Prom and Trust getting the hang of some moves, Faith continually wandering off. I still wasn't feeling it. Was it PMS? Wrong time of month. Plus, this didn't usually happen to me.

"Faith, come back," I said for the millionth time. It was getting dark by now, and although she was a ghost type who reveled in darkness, I myself was not.

This time, though, she didn't return to me. "Faith," I groaned, pulling out her pokeball. She rounded the corner past some trees before I could withdraw her.

I sighed. "Trust, Prom," I said, picking up Hope. "We gotta chase Faith down."

We walked through town – south, I think, since we first came to town from the north. Faith was difficult to see but vaguely visible. She made a turn past the Lost Tower, and it dawned on me that she knew where she was going.

Then she picked up speed. A lot of speed.

We ran, me trying not to bounce Hope too much. At least she was giggling. I hope she was giggling (hahahahaha punny).

Faith flew into the cemetery for humans, which was a little ways beyond the Lost Tower. We chased her past the gravestones. She flew through a hill – darn ghost types having it easy – and when the rest of us reached the top, we stopped. Partly because we couldn't see Faith. Partly because holy heck what is that.

They were like fog. Like clouds that had lost their way. The larger one had a man's form. I couldn't see his expression, but rather felt his emotions emanating from him – sadness, the kind that comes from grief, and happiness, the kind that comes from relief. The smaller one was in his arms.

The man faded away too soon – it felt too soon – and the little one turned around. A little girl with wild, bouncy curls. She toddled up the hill towards us, and started to turn darker. Purple. And there was Faith.

"Dada," she said.

The tombstone said Leif Warner. I searched him up as soon as we got back to the Pokemon Center. He was a naturalist who'd lived in Eterna Forest. He died a bit over a year ago, in a forest fire. He was buried in Solaceon, where his wife lay. They never found his two-year-old daughter, Faith Warner.

Faith plopped herself down on my lap. "Spruce," she said.

It wasn't fair. They should have ended up together – Faith and her dad. But there he was, already in the afterlife, and here she was, lingering behind as a ghost.

"Were you looking for your dad?" I murmured. "Is that why you stayed back?"

"Dada," Faith confirmed.

That night I watched her. She was a lovely little girl, a prankster, a giggly, playful child. But she belonged somewhere else.

The next morning, I walked towards south Solaceon again.

I'd briefly considered going to Fantina, but she didn't know ghosts in general as well as she knew ghost type pokemon. If anyone knew ghosts, it was the women at the top of the Lost Tower. Besides, Solaceon was closer to where Faith's father and mother lay.

"You seem troubled," said the one on the left, when I arrived at the top of the tower.

"A bit," I admitted. "Is it possible for a ghost pokemon to… move on?"

Unsurprisingly – I'd talked to them before – she knew what I meant. "You want to send your haunter away?"

My chest clenched. "I don't want to, necessarily… but–"

"Ah, I see," said the one on the right. "You think she will be happier with her father."

"She belongs with him," I said quietly. "Faith… She's this ball of energy, this little trickster, and I don't want her to go… but she stayed behind to find her dad and she ought to be with him now."

The left lady said, "Have you tried talking to her?"

"Faith? Uh… I mean, she's difficult to talk to seriously…"

"It might help you with this." The lady on the left looked to her right. "That being said, if she has not moved on yet…"

"…that's already a sign," the right lady finished.

"What?"

"Ghosts are not like us," said the left lady. "They are dead but alive. They have been reborn with a new life, but eventually…"

"…they choose to move on," said the right lady. "And then they do. It's easy for them, because they are dead. But often they choose not to – for a year, for a century – because they enjoy their new life."

"Living but dead," said the left. "A difficult place to be, but there are worse things than limbo."

I pulled her out when we were outside the tower. "So I'm guessing you heard that," I said.

"Lichen," Faith said agreeably.

"Yeah. So I was wondering… what do you want to do? You could stay with me–"

"Spruce," Faith interrupted.

"–or you could move on with your dad."

"Dada," she said.

"Yeah. So… Do you want to think about it, or I can bring you to the graveyard so you can talk with your dad too–"

Faith reached out with a disembodied little hand. I tentatively took it. "Spruce," she said.

I think that was when I realized two things. One, her small vocabulary did not represent her comprehension. Two, the plants weren't random.

We visited the graveyard anyways, because I wasn't sure when we'd be back in Solaceon. I sat down at the top of the hill as Faith approached her father's grave.

A cloud arose from the ground by the tombstone. Faith became lighter, looking like a little ghost girl. In this form, I could not hear what they said. The two of them conversed for a bit, and then hugged, and came up the hill together.

Leif Warner couldn't have been more than thirty. Details settled in, until I could tell he was a dark-haired man with wide glasses.

He said something to me. I can't read lips to save my life, and I don't know what his words were, but I know what he said.

I nodded and he faded away. "All right. Ready to leave Solaceon?" I said to Faith.

She giggled and zoomed ahead, waiting for me to catch up before racing south toward Hearthome.