*sprints into the room after a two month absence*

HI I'M HERE SORRY LET'S GO

Reminder that Courage's nickname is Coeur, in case you forgot. Also, Definite is Def, and Promise is Prom.

Also, shoutout to my friend who's been helping me with all of the French in this story. Love you~

Aight, let's go.

I held my breath. "It will be all right," Def reassured me.

"I know. Just go for it."

I felt the swoop of teleportation – and opened my eyes in Hearthome. Def's first long-distance jump had gone without a hitch.

"How do you feel?" I asked him.

"Fine," he said, though he looked a little gray (yes, even for a kirlia).

"Let's rest you up just in case. Then we'll go to the gym."

We went ahead and got lunch in the Pokemon Center. Def stayed at my side while the others fooled around. I kept an eye on them, making sure they didn't hurt any furniture or themselves before the battle.

"Hey Def?"

"Oui?"

"Have you given any thought into evolution?"

"I just evolved…?"

"Oh. Sorry, yeah, I know. I meant the next stage. I'm just trying to plan ahead, because your natural evolution could come around anytime."

"Ah." He paused.

"If you don't know, it's no big deal," I let him know.

Def sighed. "Je sais. I would like…" Once again he hesitated.

"What makes you pause?"

He looked at the trees. "In the community, there is a… comment dit-on… push? Les garçons are expected to be gallades, but the push is to change this expectation. Les filles are even looking for a way to be gallades."

"So you want to defy the norms?"

Definite looked unsure. "I want to support this push. Mais je veux devenir un gallade."

I could guess what that meant.

I thought about it while staring at the trees with him. It wasn't super windy, but the branches swayed in the breeze, raining soft orange leaves. Gingko trees.

"I think… you should do what you want for yourself," I said. "Becoming a gardevoir when you don't want to would just be giving in to a different kind of expectation. You should do what makes you happy."

Def nodded and closed his eyes. "Evelyn?" he said.

"Yeah?" I said.

He only hesitated a little before saying, "Je veux devenir un gallade."

"Okay. I'll start looking for dawn stones. Let me know when you're ready."

"Merci."

"Anytime."

"This battle is a continuous three-on-three match between the gym leader, Fantina, and the challenger, Evelyn Meyers from Twinleaf Town. Only the challenger may make substitutions. The battle ends when all three of one trainer's pokemon are knocked out. Battlers, are you ready?"

"Mais oui."

I breathed. We can do this.

"Ready," I said.

"Battle… begin!"

"Gengar!"

"Def, go!"

"Confuse ray!"

"Double team, teleport, and use confusion when you can," I told him silently.

Def made copies twice, so that in a few moments there were more than twenty kirlias around the room. The copies – and the real Def – appeared to teleport from point to point around Fantina's gengar.

It was a simple maneuver we'd worked on the day before. Def took a few copies away and replaced a few at the same time. It was like hide and seek, with Courage and Faith and Hope running around and working together to find the real one.

One kirlia's eyes would glow pink, and Gengar would cringe under the psychic attack, but the kirlia would disappear before Gengar could target him.

"Très bien!" Fantina exclaimed at the spectacle of kirlias dancing in and out of being around her pokemon. "Zis is the art of pokemon battles! I so hate to cut zis short. Spite!"

Gengar's eyes glowed red. A brief ripple of crimson sped through the air, though the kirlias. I tensed, looking for the move that had been cut–

The number of kirlias dropped suddenly. "Def, keep the copies. Double team's been cut," I said. "You can use them as shields. Confusion."

Def hit the gengar with his biggest psychic attack yet, making her sink down. She was barely standing.

"Last one!" I said.

"Spite!" Fantina told her gengar.

A crimson ripple sped through Def again, right before he attacked. Shoot, that was his only attack move–

"Def, think really hard about trees."

"Quoi?"

"Gengar, shadow claw!"

"Teleport. Keep thinking. Plants. Grass energy."

The first shadow claw swing was at a copy, which vanished. The second swing Def teleported away from. The third was a mass erasure of double team copies, until it was just Gengar and Def still standing.

Gengar grinned and advanced on him. Def teleported a little to the side, but Gengar swiped with her other hand, slicing Def across the chest.

"Def, magical leaf!"

It was shaky at first, but leaves appeared out of the air and traveled over to Gengar. It wasn't very effective, especially as Gengar was a poison type, but the second hit was stronger, and the third a little better than that.

"Shadow claw!"

"Magical leaf!"

Gengar lunged, and Def did his best to blast her in the face with leaves. She came down and swiped across his face, but the leaves were enough to push her over the edge of consciousness.

"Gengar is unable to battle!"

"Def, return," I said out loud. "Well done."

"Merci beaucoup."

"Drifblim, assiste moi!"

"Faith, it's yours!"

"Evelyn."

"Yeah?"

"I can pass on your words."

"Oh, that would be lovely. Faith, confuse ray, hypnosis."

Back at the Lake Resort, I finally figured out how to battle with Faith. Thomas was simultaneously training with his pokemon, but he was distracted by our battle.

"Faith, confuse ray!"

She let out a little light. Twinkling and wobbling slowly, it made its way over to Trust. Trust was unfazed as he watched it shakily make its way past him. Right when it got past, it suddenly shot straight into him. Faith giggled.

"Oak," she said. Trust looked bewildered, and he looked up right at Thomas.

"Mooooon… FERNOOOO!"

He blasted Thomas with fire.

It was an exciting several minutes, in which Prom came out to fend off the confused Trust, Faith tried to help and confused Prom too, and Oliver doused Thomas with water. At the end of it, Trust had come back to his senses and Thomas's green and gray sweatshirt was a charred, drenched mass on the ground.

"I'm sorry about your sweatshirt," I said. "I can pay for a new one."

He shrugged. "It's no big deal. It happens."

His t-shirt was fine, though soaked. He went to go dry off. I turned back to my pokemon. "How about a break?" I said.

The little light twinkled drunkenly off to the side. Fantina and Drifblim appeared unimpressed until it rocketed straight into Drifblim from a few feet away.

"Mon Dieu!" Fantina exclaimed.

"Nice!" I said. "Now go with nightshade!"

Drifblim floundered and blew a gust of air in the direction of not-Faith. Faith got a few hits in before the drifblim's attack got a little too close for comfort.

"Hypnosis!"

"Minimize!"

Drifblim shrank significantly in a small amount of time, escaping Faith's gold rings in the process. "That's fine, use nightshade," I said to her.

"Drifblim, ominous wind!"

Drifblim spun – the ominous wind shot out in all directions, virtually unavoidable. It barreled through Faith, stopping her attack.

"Faith, go up!"

She rose in the air, but Drifblim spun in a more complicated rotation and let out an ominous wind in more directions, including up at Faith. Faith looked a little battered, but I realized that Fantina's drifblim had sort of wandered into her own attack, in her confusion. We were almost there.

"One more time! Nightshade!"

Faith blasted Drifblim with dark crimson energy from above, knocking her into the ground. That was all it took.

"Drifblim is unable to battle!"

I took a deep breath. "Thanks, Faith," I said, drawing her back.

At this point, things were looking good…? I didn't want to get overconfident, but while Def was probably done fighting, Faith was in fairly good shape and I still had one more to go. I wanted my third pokemon to get a shot at battling.

"Coeur, it's yours!" I said, releasing my final pick.

Fantina raised her eyebrows at the sight of my eevee, a normal type in a ghost gym. "Interesting… Mismagius, allons-y! Use confuse ray!"

"Dodge, and… I mean–" Oops, I went verbal. "Dodge, and use sand attack."

Mismagius's confuse ray missed, as did Coeur's sand attack. "Oh, you are speaking…" Fantina trailed off. I did not like the look on her face.

"Magirêve! Entoure-la avec des feuilles!"

Shit.

Wait.

"Def, what did she say?"

"Quoi? She is speaking your language, oui?"

Human language, right.

Mismagius was shooting off magical leaves in random directions, none of which were hitting Coeur, but rather missing her by a little and coming back around to miss her by a little again?

"Rephrase, please?"

"Uh… Encircle-la avec des leaves?"

Encircle. "Coeur, she's trying to surround you. Get out of the leaves with quick attack!"

"Avec beaucoup des onde folies!"

"Def?"

"Attaque-la with many onde folies."

"What?"

Coeur darted out of the leafiest area, but found herself right in front of Mismagius and too many confuse rays. She sped out of there, but not before one hit.

"Courage!"

"Ah, très bien! And now, des feuilles!"

The magical leaves that had been left swirling off to the side now came in full force at Courage.

"Coeur, get out of there!" I tried to say. She stumbled in circles, not sure which way to go. The magical leaves tore at her fur and face and pushed her over.

When all the leaves had been used up, Coeur was in bad shape. She looked dizzy and unsure.

"It's okay, Coeur." I was trying to think – quick attack and tackle were ineffective, and almost more so due to her confusion. Sand attack was just that. Shadow ball was good, but if they hit Coeur–

OH. If they hit Coeur they'd literally do nothing.

"Shadow balls! Everywhere!"

Thomas and I had our first real battle the day before. It was only one on one because I was convinced he was a halfway decent trainer, but I was wrong.

…haha just kidding that's me being shady. What actually happened was I sent out Courage against Cassie, his quilava. It was a decently long battle, and in the end, Coeur and I had worked something out.

It was like the way Faith used confuse ray. Many shadow balls used in such a way that they're really not a threat. And then we figured out how to send them all at the opponent in a short amount of time. We actually managed to beat Cassie.

The only problem now was the confusion, since the sending-them-all-at-the-opponent part required a lot of precision.

Coeur charged one up and sent it flying. It wobbled like one of Faith's confuse rays, slowly heading out in an arbitrary direction. She formed another. And another. Mismagius didn't have to dodge anything, but pretty soon there were balls of ghost energy all around. Coeur got close to stumbling into a few slow ones, but of course this was of no concern.

And I'm not sure what it was – a hunch, maybe something in her manner, maybe the special trainer-pokemon connection forming – but something about Coeur changed, and I knew what it was without needing Def to tell me.

"The confusion wore off," Def said anyways.

I smiled. "Coeur! Like we practiced!" I said out loud, knowing Fantina couldn't translate that.

Coeur sprang into action. Quick attack to a shadow ball, create a new shadow ball behind it, shoot both forward. Repeat. Mismagius attempted to dodge once she figured out what was going on, but then Coeur was at the next shadow ball somewhere else and Mismagius didn't know where to go.

"Encore, entoure-la avec des feuillemagik!"

"Again, encircle-la avec des feuillemagik," Def said.

The leaves chased Coeur around the stadium. She skidded to a halt as they passed her and changed their paths to circle her. Coeur stood in the middle of an effective magical leaf tornado.

"Par-derrière!"

"From behind."

"Shadow ball behind you!"

It was hard to see what happened, but there was a weird sort of non-explosion. The leaves thinned out, and it became clearer: the magical leaves were being absorbed by the shadow ball. Coeur was shaking to contain it. This would be pushing it.

"I believe in you! Quick attack!"

Coeur lunged. Her ball of ghost and leaf energy led her charge into Mismagius. The overfilled ball immediately exploded in a burst of light and dust, the biggest I'd seen since before September. I covered my eyes.

When the dust cleared, both pokemon were down.

"The match ends in a draw. The victory goes to Evelyn, of Twinleaf Town!"

"Definite, merci beaucoup."

"You're welcome."

I ran over to Coeur. "Courage, we did it!" I said. "I'm so proud of you!"

Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled before going back to sleep.

While my three victorious battlers were healing, I received a message on my poketch.

Want to vidcall? :)

From Megan. I hadn't talked to her since she visited Hearthome.

"Hey."

"Hey! How's it going?"

"Pretty well. Just beat Fantina."

"Nice! Second try?"

"Yeah." I realized there were things she didn't know. "By the way. Stuff happened."

"Oh?"

Told her about Lake Valor and Azelf. I omitted a few details, like Oliver, since he was supposed to be Thomas's secret.

"Azelf… why?"

"I don't know. I asked Lucas if he saw anything out of the ordinary at Lake Verity, but he said no."

"Hm… Oh, you talked to him? Are things going better?"

I gave a wild shrug. "I don't know? He… I asked if he was mad at me, and he said no?"

"Well, if that's true, then maybe you have nothing to worry about."

"Maybe." I shook my head. "Enough about my boy problem. What about you? Anything happening?"

"In terms of boys? None of the guys at Twinleaf High are worth it."

A cheeky little voice in the back of my head told me to ask about the girls.

Shut the fuck up, I told it.

"Lucas is from Twinleaf."

Megan shrugged. "Mehh. Not my type, and he's taken," she said, grinning.

Ask her what her type is, said the voice.

Fuck off, I thought.

"He's only taken if I can befriend him again, and then get him to like me," I said.

"Don't stress yourself too much. As long as you're friends, he's bound to fall for you," said Megan.

"What? How?"

"How could he not?" she said. "You're amazing."

DID YOU HEAR THA–

I HEARD HER GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD

"Aw, thanks," I said, trying not to turn bright fucking red.

It's just your best friend giving you a compliment calm the fuck down.

The rest of the conversation was smoother. We talked about classes. I wished her luck on her bio test.

"Not that you need it," I added.

Megan smiled. "Thanks."

We hung up. I took a deep breath.

That wasn't so bad.

…who am I kidding.

Definite's dilemma early in the chapter is a metaphor for college majors lol (#womeninstem #humanitiesmajoratheart #cries)

Mmmmm yeah. Summer has arrived and my plan is to write everything, so expect actual Chance updates finally :)

Side note, if you like Miraculous Ladybug (I think it's called Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir but who has time for that), I've got a side project going right now based on that. Check it out.

Aight, see you next time (hopefully soon).