(CW: graphic battle and/or death)

Anyways 母親節快樂, it's been a few weeks but I'm back just in time to procrastinate on the last major essay I may ever write. Shoutout to my sister for her suggestion that I didn't follow, but which inspired what wound up happening. Enjoy this long-ass chapter.

We got up in the morning. We trained. We ate lunch, we trained some more, we went to dinner. We played board games til bed. We did not cross the bridge. We repeated.

Then Friday hit, and as ready as we thought we were, we were wrong.

Def teleported me to Iron Island, where Coeur, Lucario, and Riley were waiting for us. "What's going on?" I asked.

"She's close," said Riley.

"Umbreon," said Coeur.

"Coeurage is learning," Def explained. "Riley and Lucario say she needs just another day, and then she will learn the rest on her own."

"But we can come back, right?" I asked him out loud. "Looker's waiting for us."

"It would be ideal for Coeur to stay," Riley said. "She's got a lot of momentum right now. If she stays, she'll probably get it within the next day or two; if she leaves now, it could take an additional week."

"Okay, well, what about you?" I asked Def.

"Moi… je ne learning enough pas," said Def, sounding disappointed.

I looked at Riley. "He's having more issues than I hoped he would – it might have to do with knowing a similar, but very different form of energy," he explained. "They'll still be able to communicate, once Coeur gets it – he just won't be able to meet her halfway."

Def hung his head. I patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay. You'll still be able to communicate with her. And you're still carrying the rest of the team's psychic communication. That's huge."

"Je sais. I just wanted to help."

"Coeur," I said, kneeling next to her, "We're gonna head to Sunyshore – Def, are you okay with leaving?"

Def glanced apprehensively at Coeur. "I think so."

"Okay. We're heading to Sunyshore with Lucas, Dawn, and Thomas. We should be back tonight. Good luck."

"Umbreon," Coeur confirmed. With any luck, I'd soon understand her.

I landed behind the Sunyshore Pokemon Center, where Thomas was already waiting in a bulky vest that must have been three sizes too big for him. "Didn't you get Def and Coeur?" Thomas asked, noticing the natu in my arms.

"Coeur stayed behind. Def hasn't imprinted on Sunyshore yet." Handing the natu over to Thomas, I released the gallade in question from his pokeball. "Now he has. What's with the vest?"

"You'll see."

In a minute or so Looker appeared, and then Dawn, each with an IP natu. I waited for a third arrival.

"He's not coming," said Dawn.

"What?"

"He's got a prelim in the Hearthome Contest. I don't."

A mixture of feelings washed through me – disappointment, confusion, relief – but if I'm being honest, it was mostly relief? Which added to the confusion.

"There's three of you already. It should be okay," Looker said. "Anyways. Game plan."

It was a warehouse down by the pier. The three of us would go in with the Spear Key, using it to detect the exact location of the Orbs. We'd sneak in, find the Orbs, and teleport out of there immediately, rendezvousing behind the Pokemon Center. "Where's the Key, by the way?" I asked.

"Thomas has it."

Dawn and I looked at Thomas, confused. He grinned and patted the tactical vest. "It's underneath," he said. "I'm wearing it."

"But… it's a cube," Dawn pointed out.

"Not when it's activated," I said. "It's sorta… flat and… crisscrossy."

"The downside to this is that he can't wear a Galactic uniform," Looker said. "Their suits are too fitted. So I don't know how useful you and Dawn wearing a uniform will be, although I've obtained them for you. Overall, not the stealthiest plan, but we'll have the element of surprise on our side. Any questions?"

Nope, we were ready. Oh man, we thought we were ready.

Dawn and I went and got changed while Looker familiarized Def with the teleport locations. "So the contest," I said, making conversation with her.

"The contest, yep," she said, sounding amused.

"How's that going… oh, I guess it just started."

Dawn nodded. "I qualified through the prelims – back when I was in Sunyshore for the badge, I entered a contest on a whim. I figured I needed a morale booster after all those failed attempts at beating Volkner. And it worked, even if I won sort of unconventionally."

"How so?"

"Contests are all about style, right? Well… It's a five-minute round, but if your opponent's pokemon faints, they're disqualified. Since I was new to contests, I treated it like a timed tournament."

"Oh, you won won," I realized.

Dawn laughed. "Yeah! Not bad for a first contest. I'm gonna give the aesthetics of it a shot this time, though. How've you been? I haven't seen you since the tournament."

"I'm good, just… went home for a bit, ended up in Canalave. Some Iron Island stuff. Got the badge."

"Cool."

"You went to Hearthome, right? How'd that go?"

"It went well! I got the badge. Lucas finally did, too."

"Nice!" Proud of him… and her, proud of her too.

We finished changing and went outside before I could bring up the bewildering topic of "Lucas Tristan is participating in a contest? What parallel universe shit is this?" When we returned, Thomas and Dawn took hold of their borrowed natus again. I held Def's arm.

Looker nodded at us. "Safe travels," he said.

We landed in an alleyway between warehouses. Thomas staggered backwards a little, pushed by the Spear Key in his vest. "This way," said Thomas, turning around and following it to a door in one of the warehouses.

The door opened without too much persuasion (just a little fire from Trust). The insides of the warehouse were dark, so I recalled Trust before we went in (headflame ≠ stealth).

We crept behind a row of wooden crates, keeping our footsteps quiet. Thomas led us in the direction of the only voices in the room. When the boxes gave way to lower wooden pallets, Dawn and I went ahead to scout the path, followed by Thomas when we found it clear.

Suddenly, Dawn and Thomas were staring at me. "What?" I mouthed.

"You froze for a few seconds," Thomas whispered.

I closed my eyes in exasperation. "Perfect timing," I whispered. How entirely convenient that Dialga was choosing to mess with me right now.

At the edge of the warehouse were a pair of shipping crates – Thomas pointed to the one on the right. Dawn and I crossed an open area and crept into it. I pulled out a flashlight and shone it inward – just a wooden box in the corner.

Dawn and I approached the crate in the corner. She pulled the lid off, revealing a full box of hay. We dug through it, searching for the Orbs.

"Is that the bottom?"

"But it led us here…"

"As it should have," said a voice at the entrance of the crate.

Dawn and I looked up. "How did you know?" I asked the silhouette standing in front of us. I recognized her stupid hair.

"We've been expecting you." I could hear the smug grin in Jupiter's voice. "Although I didn't expect the trap to work this well. I do love when plans go according to plan."

I slowly reached for a pokeball and tapped the button in the middle to enlarge it. Nothing happened. Confused, I pulled the ball out from behind my back. It was Trust's quick ball. It had been working less than ten minutes earlier.

"What's wrong? Feeling a little powerless without your pokemon?" Jupiter's tone changed from teasing to threatening. "Now hand over the Spear Key."

"The what?" Dawn bluffed.

"Oh, please. We know how you were tracking the Orbs."

My heart raced. She was demanding the Key from the wrong people, but it was only a matter of time before they found Thomas. I couldn't tell if he was out there still, but if they'd prepared this far, then surely they'd prepared to block the exits. Our pokemon weren't available to us. I remembered weeks and weeks ago in Pastoria, when I was attacked by a stranger at the Pokemart and Trust had been trapped inside his pokeball. They were technologically advancing in ways we weren't ready for. How did we get out of this? Arceus, how do we get out of this? We're cornered in a shipping crate in a warehouse with grunts all around us and we can't use our pokeballs how do we get out of this

"Evelyn? You good?"

I blinked, adjusting to the sudden daylight. We were outside, in the alleyway by the warehouse, Trust about to melt the door handle off, all of us about to go in. "Wait," I said, realizing Dialga's time fuckery had just given us a second chance. "It's a trap."

"How do you–"

"Trust her on this," Thomas said, realizing what was going on.

"They're blocking pokeballs. They can do that now. They're planning to lure us in with the Orbs and take the Key.

"How do they know?" Thomas asked.

"I don't know… Jupiter definitely knows we have the Key, and that we're using it to track the Orbs."

"Should we retreat for now?" Dawn suggested. "It sounds like they're ready for us."

I shook my head. "We can't back out now. We'll just each have a pokemon out."

Trust melted off the doorknob and we went back in. I swapped Trust out for Def, because, again, headflame. Thomas brought out Oliver and Dawn brought out her natu. Natus were probably a good idea all around, but we still needed to consider firepower, and worst case scenario, Def could probably take two of us or else teleport back in to grab a straggler.

We crept through the warehouse once again. Rather than entering the shipping crate as before, Dawn and I squeezed through the gap between the two crates, Def and Thomas following. Behind the two stood a high metal garage door, the kind that rolls up, and a few isolated boxes, the same kind we'd seen inside the shipping crate the first time. Dawn and I approached the nearest box to check it – inside was a bronzor that immediately shot a hypnosis into Dawn's face.

"Crap," she muttered, staggering back. I ducked under another hypnosis attack; Oliver shot forth a watergun with the strength of a fire hose, slamming the bronzor into a wooden box ten feet away.

Dawn tried a pokeball – it didn't respond. "Guess I'm useless now," she laughed. Her laugh turned into a yawn. "Let's go," she said to her natu. They both disappeared.

Thomas and I moved quickly; with the size of the commotion we'd just made, our time was limited. "That one," he said, pointing at a solitary box.

Def pried it open; out popped a skuntank who immediately spilled a thick smokescreen everywhere. I tried to wave it away, but it still took time to dissipate. By then, we were surrounded by grunts and their golbats.

"Def, get Thomas out of here!" I said immediately. There was no response. I looked at Def, who stood fully alert and ready. "Def? Def, take Thomas and go," I hissed, switching to verbal speech. He put a hand on Thomas but didn't disappear. Alarm crossed his face.

"Nice try," said Jupiter, approaching through the crowd of grunts. "Somehow you anticipated our trap, but not our backup plan. Now, how about you hand over the Spear Key?"

"So, we fight?" Thomas said quietly.

"With our wooper and our psychically-disabled gallade?"

"Do we have any other choice?"

We didn't. Oliver shot streams of water at the golbats individually, sniping them one at a time before shooting continuously and wildly at them and soaking what seemed like the entire warehouse. Def, reduced to physical fighting, whipped night slashes at the golbats and at the grunts themselves, widening the space we had. But he was no match for the flying types all around him, and thinking of all the other pokemon we'd have to fight after this made me dizzy –

And just like that we were back outside the warehouse. "Ahh, okay, wait," I told Dawn and Thomas. "It's a trap. They're blocking pokeballs. They want the Spear Key. We don't need the Spear Key anymore, Thomas, take it back to Looker."

"How do you–" Dawn began.

"No time," I told her. "Trust me on this."

Thomas teleported back without another word and returned without his vest. "New plan," I said. "We can't use pokeballs, so we need to go in with our pokemon already out. They're also blocking psychic things, I think, because telepathy and teleportation don't work, so we'll have to grab the orbs and run til we get outside."

Dawn looked uneasy. "Maybe we should come back another time…"

I shook my head. "No. We can do this. We'll fight our way through it."

We brought out all of our pokemon – the big, the small, the fiery-bright, the shadowy. Trust melted off the doorknob and we charged in –

And then everyone around me was gone, but I heard the sounds of battle up ahead. When I realized what had happened – I'd skipped forward this time – I ran toward the noise, arriving just in time to see Trust locked in combat with Jupiter's skuntank. And obviously a lot was going on around us, around them – Hope and Esther fending off about a million golbats, Oliver and Bree and Prom combining their water moves – but Trust drew my attention because he was so focused on fighting the skuntank, he didn't notice the sneasel that ran up behind him and pounced, claws extended, a manic look in his eyes, and I remembered suddenly the spoink Dawn once had who'd been killed in an altercation with Team Galactic –

"No!"

He slashed, ripping Trust's back open. Trust collapsed. "DEF! PROM! I NEED YOU!" I screamed in my head, running to my starter and scooping him up. His blood was everywhere. The skuntank and sneasel scurried on to another battle. Def and Prom were there quickly. Prom put up a shield and Def started healing the infernape in my arms. The wounds on his back were much too deep and he was much too limp and I didn't know if life dew could heal something this bad and judging by Trust's breath turning shallower it seemed to be no –

"Evelyn? –Oh, Mew, you're covered in blood!"

And we were outside again. Trust was standing at the door, perfectly fine, ready to melt down the door handle. "Arceus…" I nearly tackled Trust, holding him tightly. If he hesitated out of confusion, it didn't show. He wrapped his arms around me in return.

"Um… is everything okay?" Thomas asked me.

"No, just… just give me a sec… Go give the Key back to Looker… Def, can you hear me?"

"Oui."

"Can you tell Trust… Can you tell Trust: Jirra's in there."

Def was confused. "Qui est-ce?"

"Jirra. Hey Dawn," I said out loud. "Can I… can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure...?"

"Back in Veilstone," I said, "when you were attacked by Galactic – was it Jupiter? With a sneasel?"

"Yeah," she said, looking worried. "The sneasel was the one who… he was the one."

"Jirra's my old sneasel," I told Def. "He's the epitome of the dark element stereotype – vicious, bloodthirsty, maybe even evil. Jupiter has him now. And he might have just killed Trust."

Thomas reappeared without his vest. "What's going on?" he asked me. "Why are you bleeding?"

"It's not my blood. I just need a break before attempt four," I said pointedly.

He cringed, understanding. "It's not going well, huh?"

"Well, I'm not exactly controlling it." Letting go of Trust, I began to explain the trap once again: the pokeball blocker, the psychic blocker, the grunts poised and ready for an ambush. "I'd suggest going in all at once, all our pokemon out, but that doesn't look good either. Jupiter's got a vicious sneasel who only makes an appearance in the case of the big attack."

"Can we sneak up on them from behind?" Thomas suggested.

I was about to say no, the Orbs were at the far end of the warehouse – but then I remembered the garage door. "Maybe we can."

The three of us plus several of our pokemon – Def and Trust and Prom, Oliver and Esther, Kenna and Dawn's roserade (Melody?) ran down the alleyway between warehouses. We rounded the corner. I was in the middle of trying to figure out how Trust could break the door down and make it look like an accident, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The Orbs, you see, weren't inside at all.

Mars jumped when she saw us. "What? But… Why would you be out here?"

"For those," I said, pointing at the box sitting conspicuously behind her on the loading dock. "It's a bait and switch, isn't it? You lure us in with those, Jupiter steals the Key?"

"Sure, but you were supposed to be lured in there, not out here." Mars huffed. "Well, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Hand over the Key."

"Guess we'll do it the hard way," I said. "Trust–"

"You don't have it, do you? But how did you find…" Mars sighed in frustration. "This is a waste of time." She released her Porygon-Z from a pokeball.

"Wait, Def, psy–"

"Jupiter, they're out back," Mars said into her wrist before disappearing. A couple of pebbles hovered for a second where the box had been. Def let them fall back down.

"Well, that went badly," I groaned, withdrawing Trust and Prom and preparing to teleport with Def.

"Maybe we'll get a fifth chance?" Thomas suggested. "We could find and take out the pokeball and psychic blockers?"

"Maybe," I said, knowing that we couldn't count on it.