We have hit FIFTY CHAPTERS Y'ALL CAN I GET A YA YEET

"Je ne veux pas," said Def, his face buried in a pillow.

"It's already nine," I said. "Gotta get going if we're gonna train today."

"Je ne veux pas," he repeated. I wasn't 100% sure what he was saying, but Coeur seemed to feel the same way (neither of them budged).

I gave up and left the pair of them asleep in my room. Descending into the living room, I found my mom on the couch, watching the news with the rest of my pokemon. Onscreen was something about the upcoming Hearthome Contest, which more importantly meant the news wasn't talking about the break-in at the International Police HQ.

Of course it isn't, I thought. The IP would never admit to such a mistake.

"What are your plans for today?" asked Mom.

"Training, getting lunch with Tricia and Megan, going to Megan's for board games."

"For what?"

"Board games," I repeated more slowly.

"Okay. Remember to speak clearly, please."

I groaned internally and started heading out. Trust, Prom, Faith, and Hope got up to leave. "Kay. Bye Mom."

"Bye."

My pokemon and I stretched and took a warmup lap around the pond in south Twinleaf. When we got back to my front yard, Megan was waiting there.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," I said, suddenly self-conscious of my sweaty shirt. "I thought we were meeting up at noon?"

"We are," she confirmed. "But last night I realized I've never seen you train, so if you're okay with it…"

"Oh! Sure thing."

I'd intended to pit Trust and Def together to solidify what we worked on the previous night, but since half the parties involved were sleeping in, I directed Trust at an old punching bag hanging from a tree while I focused on the others.

Prom, Faith, and Hope were all fast, but to different styles. Prom was very directional, but didn't get a lot of air. Faith could go both high and belowground, but got distracted easily. Hope was unpredictable, which was great for dodging, but also chaotic and uncontrollable. The point wasn't to change their speed styles, but to make sure they could deal with everyone else's.

"All right," I said, clapping my hands together. "Let's play tag."

We played no-tagbacks style (which came with a memory of better times with Lucas but anyways), so Prom went after Faith, who chased Hope, who swooped back down around at Prom. Prom quickly realized he could get much more air with aqua jet, so he started relying on that. Hope found that she could dive faster than she could fly, which let her catch up to Prom. Faith could change directions the fastest (do physics work on ghosts?), which meant she could dodge Prom's swift and smooth motions without needing much speed in the first place.

I was about ready to tell them to switch up the order when Trust broke the punching bag.

"Infernape," he said awkwardly, looking at the stream of sand flowing out.

"It's okay," I said, laughing. "You're just too strong, oh darn."

I went back into the house to grab duct tape. He wasn't the first to have broken the bag. Bree had sliced it open with her steel-tipped wings way back when.

Definite and Courage were up. "Well if it isn't our sleeping beauties," I said cheerfully.

"Gallade," Def yawned. Neither he nor Coeur looked any less tired than when I'd last left them.

I set Def and Trust to sparring and checked in on everyone else; Coeur and Prom were doing something or other, and Faith and Hope had naturally reverted to playing 2-player tag up above. When I looked back at Def and Trust, I realized Trust was going wildly easy on Def, who was still getting hit.

"Def, are you okay?"

Trust stopped; Def hadn't really ever started. "Gall," he said.

"Telepathically, s'il vous plait?"

"Je suis tired."

"Did you sleep last night?"

"Oui, a little."

"What's going on?" Megan asked, confused.

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Def and I are talking. He didn't sleep well. Def, do you need a nap?"

"Gall," he said.

I was about to ask what that meant, but an exclamation behind me diverted all our attention to Coeur, who'd bitten one of Prom's tails with ice fang. Prom looked delighted.

I fumbled for my pokedex. "Can umbreons learn ice fang?"

The pokedex said no you idiot of course they can't. Then a screen I'd never seen before popped up, and the dex proceeded to analyze the situation in front of me.

"Ice fang registered," it chirped. A new move being registered for a pokemon? I'd never heard of such a thing.

"Look at you go, girl," I said happily. "Breaking dex-pectations."

Def went back upstairs to take a nap.

I showered at 11:30 and met with Megan and Tricia for lunch. We then went back to Megan's place and tried to save the world from four different plagues (in board game form). We'd cured the blue and yellow diseases already when Johto decided to have a chain reaction breakout that lost us the game (thanks so much Mahogany Town).

Our second round was going okay, despite the red disease spreading from Hoenn into Sinnoh, when Looker called me. "Is this urgent? I'm saving the world right now," I told him.

There was a confused pause. "What?"

"We're playing Pandemic."

"What is…"

"A board game? Do you play those?"

"Not often. I'm usually on my own."

"You live a sad life," I told him.

"At any rate, it's not terribly urgent. Call me when you can."

"Okay. Say bye to Megan and Tricia."

"Hello," he said. Megan and Tricia greeted him in return.

"That wasn't a bye, but okay."

"Talk to you later."

"Bye."

Looker hung up. "Who's that?" Tricia asked.

"The IP agent I told you about. There's been developments."

"Good or bad?"

"Uh… I mean, we've generally been doing well, but the recent one wasn't stellar."

"What happened?"

I hesitated. "The Lustrous and Adamant Orbs have been stolen from the IP," I said.

"Ouch. That's pretty big."

"It's less than ideal. Luckily, we still have the… another item they need on our side," I said, suddenly too concerned for their safety to say "Spear Key."

"Is it with the IP too?"

"No, it's better protected than that."

"Well that's good then."

Megan flipped over the infection cards. "Goldenrod City," she said.

I placed a blue cube down. "Lavaridge Town," she added.

I added a red cube to the two already there. "And Hearthome City."

"Oh good, a new city is sick," I said, dropping a yellow cube in the middle of the region. "Dawn and Lucas better watch out."

"They're in Hearthome?" said Megan.

"Yeah."

"For the contest?"

"For the gym badge."

"Are you doing the contest?"

"Me?" I asked with surprise. "I don't do contests."

"Why not?" Tricia asked.

I shrugged. "They sort of feel like a waste of time. Gyms and tournaments are for strength, which helps me in the long run. I don't see beautiful battling helping me defeat Galactic."

"It could still be a good experience," said Megan. "Plus, you'd have an excuse to be in the same city as Lucas."

I cringed. "Yeah…"

Megan noticed. "It's not going well?"

"He barely talks to me. I've asked if he's mad or something and he says no. I don't know what's going on. I don't even know how to talk to him anymore."

"Maybe you need some conversation starters," said Tricia thoughtfully.

"Like what?" Megan asked.

"Like… You have a haunter, right?"

"Yeah."

"Does Lucas have an evolves-by-trade pokemon?"

"He has a kadabra," Megan said.

"Okay, so you could ask if he wants to trade and trade back," Tricia suggested.

"I guess so."

"What else?" Tricia asked generally. For twenty minutes, we neglected saving the world in favor of saving my love life.

Tricia's birthday was the next day. I left Def and Coeur (who were awake but very groggy) at home as I went shopping for a present. As I left, I noticed that the punching bag lay fifty feet away from the tree.

When I returned at 1 pm, Def and Coeur were sound asleep. "You two are still sleeping?" I said incredulously. "It's time to go. Tricia's party is starting."

"Je ne veux pas," Def said. Coeur shifted, only half-awake.

"You don't what?"

"Je ne veux pas me leve," he said. This didn't clarify things.

"Je… je ne understand pas," I told him.

"Neither does Coeurage." He opened exhausted bloodshot eyes and looked at me. "We slept ourselves when you left this morning. Nous avons try all night to talk."

"That's what you've been doing?" This explained why Def had been so verbally chatty yesterday.

"Oui." He looked sad. "Je ne feel pas son emotions."

"Def, she's a dark type."

"Oui, mais, she learned ice fang. If we just try harder…"

I exhaled, looking at my exhausted pokemon. They could just keep communicating verbally like Def had been doing, but it wasn't nearly the same – they couldn't talk across pokeballs, they couldn't talk privately, they couldn't communicate long-distance. It was a huge impediment in the friendship they'd established.

I knelt down next to them. "Look, I know this means a lot to you. If it wasn't already clear how close you two are, the fact that you pulled consecutive all-nighters trying to communicate would have made it obvious. But I need you to know you're not in this alone. There's bound to be a way for you to communicate again – I'll do whatever I can to help, and I imagine the rest of the team will do the same."

"They said they will," said Def a split second later.

"Great! In the meantime, though, you don't need to sacrifice your health for this. You can keep trying to power through the dark-psychic barrier if you want, but do it during the day. You'll only make yourselves more miserable by trying to do this nonstop. We'll find a way, but don't hurt yourselves in the process."

"D'accord. Desole," said Def.

"Don't be sorry. You care a lot and it's obvious. Just go back to sleep," I said, patting him and Coeur on the head.

"D'accord." Coeur snuggled up under his arm. I left the two of them to catch up on sleep.

I met Maya (Tricia's friend from the internship) for the first time at Tricia's birthday party. She and Tricia had a similar energy of enthusiasm, although Tricia's was definitively higher. She hung by Tricia the entire time, talking with her and laughing about things I didn't understand. It wasn't a big party and everyone else was from school; Tricia was likely the only person Maya knew here.

We had lunch and played A Thousand Blank White Cards. Each of us made three new cards to add to the set that Jonathan had brought.

Megan played a card that aimed to steal one of mine. I played "No Tagbacks," which I'd created back when tag was a thing we did between classes – me, Megan, Tricia, Jonathan, and Lucas. Megan retaliated to my deflection with a new card called "Superhuman Centrifuge" and Tricia burst out laughing. Maya grinned proudly.

They tried to explain it together, Tricia doing the bulk of the talking with Maya interjecting a few side notes. I sort of got it. It wasn't as funny if you weren't there, I guess.

We made Tricia open her gifts: baking supplies from Megan, a pretty notebook from me. Maya said her gift was coming later.

"How's Def and Coeur?" Megan asked me in the late afternoon.

"Sleeping," I said. I told her about their dilemma.

"That's tough," she said, frowning. "They've just been trying to power through it?"

"Yeah. So far, nothing."

"Maybe there's an alternate route? Something that's not psychic?"

I nodded. "That's what I'm thinking."

"Something that won't make them continually lose sleep."

"Exactly," I said. That was literally what I'd told Def earlier. Megan and I were almost perfectly in sync.

Ooh, teased a voice in my head.

I thought you went away, I retorted.

Yeah, you also thought your feelings for Megan went away.

Arceus…

The party wound down slowly, until it was just me and Tricia and Maya left. I went to use the restroom, and when I came back, Maya and Tricia were talking.

"…a reading lamp! I've been needing one of these!"

Maya laughed. "I know. You can adjust the brightness to read when other people are asleep – there's even a red light setting so you can retain your night vision."

"Dude, thank you so much! This is perfect."

"What can I say? Friends should know what friends need."

I reentered the living room. "I think I'm gonna head out now," I said. "Nice meeting you, Maya."

"Bye," said Tricia, coming in for a hug. "Thanks for coming!"

I wasn't sure if I imagined the look on Maya's face – jealousy not entirely overridden by victory.

Ayyy we made it through band camp and we're back publishing babyyyy

I'm not sure if you can actually trade and trade back in the games but let's be real, there's no reason it shouldn't exist in the real world of pokemon. Also you can pry Faith from my cold, dead hands (there's a joke about her being a ghost in there somewhere but there's a point I'm trying to make here).

Anyway, I think this thing is happening? Regular updates? Well, maybe not regular, but updates! Hope (lol) to see y'all soon! Skyline out. Go watch The Good Place.