IT BEGINS

YOU'RE NOT READY FOR THIS CHAPTER AHAHAHAHA

Also Eduardo go to sleep.

Looker showed up in the morning, out behind the Pokemon Center like he said he would. "Ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Great." He handed me a pokeball. "Happy birthday. See you soon," he said, teleporting away.

Well, he remembered.

Thomas hadn't remembered. I mentioned it briefly and he said happy birthday. He was staying in Hearthome to fight the gym and hopefully catch up to me in badges. Tricia texted me a happy birthday via poketch. Megan didn't. Maybe she slept in… on a Tuesday? Maybe she was sick.

I teleported to a place I had never seen before – a rocky mountainside, made dark by cloud cover. We stood next to a cave entrance. "Are Dawn and Lucas on their way?" I asked Looker.

"Just… let me brief you first," he said, sounding worn out.

I finally got a good look at him. His face was shadowed by stubble and violet bags under his eyes.

"Looker, what happened?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, exactly… I've just been having problems finding info."

So he'd done nothing but try. "Looker, you need to take care of yourself."

"Not before we know what we're doing."

I stared at him and sighed a little. This was an argument for later. "So, what have you found out?"

"It's… complicated. There were conflicting sources, but it boiled down to: there's a stone in Stark Mountain that can wake Heatran and probably control her. It's either called the Heat Stone or the Magma Stone, probably the latter, and Galactic probably wants it to analyze its similarity to the Red Chain. Or else they want it because it might speed up the process of making their Red Chain."

I had no words. Probably. We were working with more probablies than I'd ever heard in my life.

Looker avoided my eyes. "I know… I'm so sorry…"

"It's not your fault."

He grimaced.

"Looker! You did everything you could."

He jumped a little when I raised my voice. He smiled halfheartedly, but it faded fast. "Sorry. I'm not accustomed to not knowing things. I prefer to have the answers. This adds so much uncertainty to an otherwise mundane mission."

"We'll be okay with what we've got. Same deal as Celestic Town? Go in there, grab the stone, fend off Galactic?"

"From what I can tell, yes."

"Okay."

We paused for a second, sort of letting the plan sink in. It sounded good to me. Straightforward.

"I'll get the other two," said Looker.

It was a matter of him teleporting back and forth a bit – first to Celestic to give Dawn a natu, then to Pastoria to retrieve Lucas's kadabra and imprint our location, and back again to Pastoria to drop off the kadabra with Lucas again. He could have just given my natu to Lucas. It's fine.

Dawn and I were alone for a bit during this time. "How've you been?" I asked her.

"Pretty good. I caught a swablu around Celestic Town," she said.

"Ooh, nice."

"How are you?"

"I'm good. Made a gym attempt yesterday, but it looks like I'll have to go back once we're done with the lake research."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

Polite, but not cold. We parted on strange terms, but not bad terms, so we were okay.

Lucas teleported in looking in my direction. He quickly looked away. My stomach sank.

"Hi," said Dawn. Lucas nodded at her.

"…Hey," I tried.

Lucas silently said hello. His eyes did meet mine. My stomach came back up and did a little flip. I hadn't… expected… Maybe we were okay now.

Looker briefed them a little less thoroughly and a little more definitively, and we were off.

The journey to the center of the mountain took several hours. The air became progressively warmer as we walked (I was very glad we'd all left our jackets behind), although there weren't loads of magma pools everywhere like I'd assumed. There also wasn't a ton of small talk, as neither Lucas nor I did much of that in general. It was mostly him and Dawn conversing, which I was okay with because at least he was here, and at least the air between us wasn't strained and angry.

"Trust would like to know pourquoi tu te sens nerveuse," Definite telepathized.

"Pardon?"

There was a pause as Def communicated with Trust.

"Why you are nerveuse," Def tried again.

"Nervous?"

"Oui."

"Uh… I don't like caves."

"He says you were attacked in Oreburgh Gate?"

"Oh, well, yes, but that's not why they make me nervous. There was… ahh… an incident. Did Trust tell you about…?"

"The time travel?"

"Yeah. And the Valor incident."

"Oui, je sais."

"Sorry?"

"He did tell me."

…okay, let's be real, I didn't like being in a cave with Lucas again. Particularly on an anti-Galactic mission.

Speaking of which.

"Do either of you think it's weird that we haven't seen Galactic yet?" I eventually said.

"They might be closer to the center of the mountain," Dawn said.

"No, we're already here," Lucas informed us.

We'd reached a pair of massive stone doors. Intricate carvings depicted a heatran and a sort of pyramid with a lump on top.

"See anything?" Dawn asked, meaning ways to open doors made of giant heavy-looking blocks of stone.

I scanned the doors. There were no latches or handles or magic riddles to solve, apart from the ornamental carvings that, as far as I could tell, translated roughly to "yep there's definitely an altar in here." The one promising clue was the fact that the doors didn't seem to touch the ground, but rather hovered slightly above it.

I put up my hands and gave the doors a shove.

"Oh. Nice," said Dawn, surprised, as the doors slowly swung completely open.

It seemed too easy, but inside there was a stone staircase upward, and there was a glowing pink psychic barrier around the top, so perhaps that was supposed to be enough.

We climbed upward (what no I wasn't winded by the top) (also no my thighs weren't on flipping FIRE) (I bet the stairs were the real deterrent) ("ugh I'm too tired to climb up all the way forget this let's go home") (anyways I digress). At the top, I pulled out a pokeball.

"Faith, use nightshade," I said, releasing her.

Faith appeared and sent a crimson beam of energy at the psychic bubble. It sort of melted a hole in it, a low door of dark energy. I withdrew her and the three of us slipped in.

The Magma Stone (probably the Magma Stone, maybe the Heat Stone) was about the size of a backpack, and looked just like any other rock in the mountain. Unlike the other rocks, it was very warm to the touch. Lucas picked it up.

"You got it?" I checked.

He shifted it so that it was comfortable in his arms. "Yeah."

The three of us stepped out of the psychic barrier. I withdrew Faith. "Someone else is here," said Definite.

I looked down the stairs. Jupiter, flanked by two grunts. Dawn and Lucas and I drew pokeballs.

"You again?" she said incredulously.

"Us again," I confirmed.

"How in hell…?" Jupiter huffed visibly. "All right. Hand us the stone."

Wow, I'm so scared. I mean, come on, it was her and two grunts versus three actual trainers. I found this funny, but the humor died when I realized who was holding the Magma Stone, and who was thus going to be Jupiter's target in the inevitable coming battle.

"Guess we'll just fight through you, then," she said.

The three of them released a skuntank and a horde of golbats. I instinctively tried to grab Liana's pokeball because she knew discharge and there were a lot of golbats.

Get it together Evelyn, it's been well over a month.

We collectively brought a golduck, prinplup, kadabra, ralts, growlithe, and buizel into the battle. "If we take out the grunt pokemon first, we'll have the advantage in the end," I said to Dawn and Lucas.

And then the earth shook.

We caught ourselves before we could fall. The air between us and Jupiter shimmered. It darkened and solidified into brown and gray and fiery orange.

We all froze. The beast that had appeared slowly turned around, placing one heavy leg after another until she was looking straight at us.

Unleashing Heatran was not one of Looker's probablies.

She roared and powered up for a fire attack, gathering magma at her mouth. "P-prom, use anything water," I stuttered. He blasted a watergun at the magma ball, which gave off steam as it hit. Kenna added her bubblebeam to solidify it further.

Heatran roared and for some reason turned around again – it looked like Jupiter was attacking. We flew into a chaos of should-we-fight-Heatran-or-Galactic-or-both, with our psychic types trying to reach the golbats on the other side of Heatran, Prom and Kenna trying to stop Heatran from shooting magma everywhere, and the others darting past to fight Galactic directly. "Lucas, the stone!" said Dawn, pointing up at the altar.

Heatran lifted herself off the ground and slammed back down, rocking the entire chamber back and forth. I saw Lucas, who was climbing the stairs, lose his balance.

I lunged. My hands caught his back before he could really fall. I pushed him gently back up – he was light – and he ran to the top. He released a houndour to cut through the psychic shield and placed the Magma Stone back on top–

The air stilled. Heatran vanished; the rest of the fighting ceased. Lucas left the stone and ducked back out of the psychic shield, which closed up once he'd exited.

Jupiter picked herself back up, breathing hard. We all were, some more from the adrenaline rush of the situation than physical exertion.

"Well. That was… enlightening," she said between breaths. "We're heading out."

With that, they withdrew their pokemon and ran out of the room. Dawn and Lucas and I couldn't figure out what to say.

"…success?" I said out loud.

We teleported straight out and told Looker what happened. He looked distraught.

"This is all my fault. I'm so sorry to have put you through this–"

"Looker, it's all right–"

"It's not all right, Lyn."

"We're fine, see?"

"It was reckless danger. I'm sorry. Go back to where you were before."

We said our goodbyes. Looker escorted Dawn back to Celestic Town. I brought Definite out. "See you later," I said to Lucas. He neither looked at me nor responded.

"Lucas?" I said.

"Hm?"

I studied his face – his eyes were calm but cool, like he was pretending not to be… what?

"Are… you okay?"

His eyes flicked up to mine briefly. "I'm fine," he said.

"…okay." He looked away.

I took Def's hand. "See you then," I said.

"Bye."

I blinked and suddenly we were back in Hearthome, behind the pokemon center. It was barely early afternoon.

"You are sad?"

I looked down at Def and sighed. "A bit," I said out loud. "Def, do you know why Lucas is mad at me?"

"Non. I sense emotion, rather than read minds."

We went back to the pokemon center to get cleaned up and healed. I couldn't stop overthinking it. Lucas was mad. I think. But still? Why did it get better in the morning? What the fuck was wrong with him?

What was I supposed to do to make us better?

After I showered, I went downstairs to retrieve my pokemon from the front desk and probably eat lunch or something. Thomas was nowhere to be found.

"Evelyn!"

Wait, what?

I turned around quickly and saw Megan walking toward me. "Either I'm hallucinating or you're actually visiting me on a Tuesday during school," I said, stunned.

She laughed. "I've obviously got a bad cold. I can't go to school like this."

I shook my head, grinning. We hugged each other. "Happy birthday," Megan said, handing me a little box.

"Thanks."

She hadn't eaten yet either, so we went out to lunch. She'd dressed up for my birthday more than I had. This was the most we'd interacted in person since… It must have been over three months ago for me?

At some point she did ask me about Stark Mountain.

"Uh… it was weird. I think we were worried about nothing." I explained how the Magma Stone was more of a seal than a pokemon-controller. "Galactic couldn't have made use of it anyways."

"Huh. Glad it turned out okay, I guess."

"I… yeah…"

She tilted her head. "What?"

I struggled for words. "Lucas," I said finally.

"Oh no."

I couldn't help but laugh a little at her reaction. "Accurate. He seemed okay with me early on, and then by the end he didn't want to talk to me."

"Did something happen?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. We just kinda traveled through the mountain, then we got the stone, then we had to kinda fight Jupiter and Heatran, then Dawn figured it out and he put the stone back and we were done. I don't know what I missed."

Megan huffed. "He's so weird…"

"Yeah… Well, enough of my drama. Anything interesting in your life?"

She shrugged. "Not much. Visiting my best friend for her birthday."

I grinned. Aww.

It was like the shitty part of the day had never happened. In the back of my head I was worried about Lucas per usual, but the rest of me was smiling and laughing with my best friend.

(…was that fair? I was used to saying both her and Tricia. But now there was one I talked to more than the other, one who knew more of me than the other…)

I breathed in the city air. Megan. My best friend.

She stayed for the rest of the afternoon. We wandered the city, explored Amity Square, tried making poffins at the Poffin House (Megan's batch came out really nice what the heck), and generally enjoyed the city. If I'm being honest, I wouldn't have done any of these things if Megan wasn't there. I'd have… I don't know. Stayed in all day, maybe. Probably.

She had to leave at sunset – the last train back to Twinleaf was leaving at 6, and she was planning to attend school the next day.

"Thanks so much for visiting," I told her.

"Anytime. You should visit home sometime. You have a ralts, right?"

"Yeah, but psychic types need to imprint on a location before they can teleport to it."

"Do you want me to take him back to Twinleaf?" Megan asked.

"And have him teleport back? That would be great, actually."

Her train pulled into the station. I handed Def's pokeball to her and we hugged one last time. "Good luck at Lake Valor," she said.

"Thanks. See you," I said.

Megan turned and walked to the train. She has this certain walk, where she sort of holds her limbs slightly aloft from her body as she moves.

And I don't know why exactly it happened – maybe because I'd missed her, maybe because I was upset about Lucas, maybe because she'd crossed half the Sinnoh region to see me on my birthday – but very suddenly, while watching her walk away, I realized something. I waved to her as the train pulled away, but my mind was still reeling.

Because it hit me that she was beautiful, and that if I'd let myself, I could easily have fallen for her.