Hi hello I'm back.

Just fyi, the contest system in this chapter is mostly based on the contest system in the anime (timed battle, both trainers starting with full points and receiving deductions for the things their opponent does) but with some aspects of the contests in the games (i.e. points assigned to specific moves).

Anyway I gotta go write an essay draft that was due a week ago, enjoy the chapter!

(CW: some depression)

Thomas and Dawn went back to Canalave and Hearthome, respectively, while I stayed behind to talk to Looker. "So they knew," he said, sounding as tired as I felt.

"They knew," I echoed, sinking into an armchair in the corner of the bougie Sunyshore coffeehouse. Fatigue had set in since getting back from our failed Orb heist.

"Tell me more."

"They knew we were after the Orbs," I said. "And Jupiter knew we were using the Spear Key to find them."

Looker ran his hands through his hair. "But to know the exact time and day we were going to be there, when they've had the Orbs for two weeks… How did they get that information?"

"Maybe they have someone on the inside? Someone in the IP, like the person who teleported in?"

"Perhaps? I ran a check on the admins' faces, and none of them have ever been involved with the IP, so I don't know where they're getting their information. And then there's the ruins – I did some research in Snowpoint and double-checked with Cynthia: the golem ruins – Iron, Iceberg, Rock Peak – the only known way of activating them is with the Spear Key."

"But obviously we still have the Key… Did Cynthia say if it went missing or anything?"

"The Key's continuously been where it should be."

"Okay, so… maybe they have an alternate method?"

"Which is almost worse," said Looker, "if they've found a way to replace the Spear Key… But, no, then they wouldn't have tried to take it from you today."

"Maybe the trap was a decoy?"

"But it seems like they were pretty thorough, for a trap that was just a decoy."

"Fair."

I think we talked for another hour or two, but mostly in circles. We came up with ways Galactic could be circumventing the Key and shot each one back down. We created theories for how they knew we'd go looking for the Orbs that day and couldn't find one that worked. Looker proposed the idea of a mole amongst us again, and we found multiple reasons why Dawn and Lucas and Thomas and even Cynthia couldn't possibly be working with Galactic. "So then there's just me," I said.

"Oh, you're innocent," said Looker, sipping his coffee.

"You're sure? I thought you're supposed to 'trust no one'?"

"Officially, yeah," he agreed. "But you and I have been through too much for that."

I smiled. "As much as I don't want you to be biased… I do appreciate that, thanks."

I held up my coffee mug. He clinked his against mine.

I teleported back to Canalave. "Where to next?" Thomas asked. "We could start heading up to Snowpoint, or we could train somewhere for a while. Maybe Iron Island again? See how Courage is doing? What do you think?"

"I don't know."

"We could also go to Hearthome if you want, watch the contest?"

"Maybe."

Thomas paused. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just tired."

"Do you… We could just spend the rest of the day here, if you want to rest." He put his backpack back down on the floor.

"Okay."

The weariness hadn't stopped growing since the heist. By now, I felt numb in a vague, sleepy way. There was something beneath it that was more painful, like a flame half-hidden, half-diffused under a blanket of fog. I kept feeling the warm weight of Trust's body in my arms.

I took a nap. I woke up at five and dozed on-and-off for another hour. Thomas persuaded me to go downstairs for food with him. We let out all our pokemon in the cafeteria so they could hang out and eat with us and play and it somehow made me feel even more exhausted.

I slept twelve hours that night, despite having taken a nap before that. In the morning, I still felt tired. While I was in the shower, I started thinking about all the things we could have done differently in any of our four attempted heists. We should have attacked Mars faster. Maybe I could have forced myself into skipping back in time again? Maybe the first attempt could have turned out okay, if Thomas went back outside and brought all his pokemon out. But everything felt like a stretch; everything felt out of my control.

And I hadn't even gotten to see Lucas. I'd been looking forward to that. I remembered something Tricia had proposed: a trade-for-evolution between Faith and Lucas's kadabra. An excuse to talk to him. This seemed like a good way of lifting my spirits. I mean, I really doubted he'd say no to something that would benefit him directly. So we'd get to talk, finally. At least for a little – a small success after various failures.

When I got out of the shower, I went back to the room and said to Thomas, my hair still dripping wet, "Let's go to Hearthome."

Def and I went and picked up Coeur from Iron Island. "She's just about got it," Riley said. "She might even be able to… well…"

I looked at Coeur. It was hard to describe how… If Def's telepathy was pink, then the "Hi," I heard was violet.

"Hi," I said back. "Uh… can you hear me?"

"Hello?" I heard.

"Hey," I said out loud. I guess I couldn't yet respond. Still, a good start.

Coeur looked at Def next, and judging by the disappointment on their faces, the two of them weren't quite there yet either.

Def teleported Thomas to Hearthome, then came back for me. He was somewhat winded, but jumping halfway across the region four times was perhaps the longest trip he'd taken in the shortest amount of time.

The Hearthome Contest is a pretty major one, but it all takes place in the same contest hall. It helps that each round is only five minutes, max. When I got there, the contest was nearing the end of Round 1. We found Dawn and Lucas in the lobby – my breath caught in my chest for a second. They were dressed up, Dawn in a pink dress, Lucas in a navy blue shirt and a white bow tie. He looked so dapper.

"Hi," I said timidly.

Lucas nodded at me without looking me in the eye.

"Hey!" said Dawn, beaming. "You're here!"

"Yeah, figured we'd come support you," I said, feeling the truthlessness behind what I was saying. Or, I mean, I guess it wasn't entirely false. I just had other reasons motivating me to be there.

"Hellll yeah," she said happily. "I just went, but Lucas has his first round match coming up."

"Cool. Oh yeah, how'd the prelims go?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Okay."

A serene voice from above announced that Lucas Tristan and Arissa Ramirez were on deck. Lucas stood. "Good luck!" Dawn said as he walked backstage.

"So he's in a contest?" I finally asked. "Lucas?"

"Yeah, right?" said Dawn. "I wasn't sure he'd do it, but I signed up anyway and he wound up entering after all."

"Hm." I doubt it was a brag, but it felt like one (Look at me, I'm Dawn, and Lucas likes me enough to enter a contest). "Even given…?"

"The stereotype?" That contests were girly.

"Yeah."

"I guess so. Sometimes boys join for hyperspecific reasons, like impressing a girl they like."

That was surely a brag. But she said it like I was a co-conspirator, a friend who knew about the boy she liked and could gossip with her about him. "Interesting," I said. "Uh… how's that going?"

"Pretty well, I think," she said happily. "We've been hanging out since the last tournament. It's been a good time."

"Do you know if he…?" My throat was dry.

"Reciprocates? I don't know," said Dawn. "There's some signs of it – you know how he's usually really closed off? He's been opening up towards me. Then again, maybe I'm just misinterpreting signs of friendship."

"Maybe." But if those were signs of friendship, then what did that say about me? Were we just not friends anymore?

"There you are," said Thomas, approaching from the side. "I saw Lucas is about to go on? Shall we go watch?"

We went in. Part of me expected Lucas to take the same approach Dawn took in her first contest – a timed battle, rather than an aesthetic challenge – but that wasn't the case. Arissa's jigglypuff floated around the stage, making heart-shaped Charm bubbles appear, and Lucas's torterra shot them down with a razor leaf that swirled around the room like a hurricane. Torterra used rock polish while the jigglypuff bounced through the air far away. I wondered why he didn't just let the razor leaf hit the jigglypuff.

Oh yeah, contest, not a tournament battle.

The jigglypuff used wish, which darkened the stadium and illuminated it with stars. The crowd oohed. Lucas's torterra used rock polish twice more, lighting up like a firecracker in the night, and followed up with curse, which looked like pink fireworks.

The wish faded, and was immediately followed by an icy wind from the jigglypuff. It tore through the tree on Torterra's back. I winced; it looked like Lucas had lost a lot of points. Rocks appeared above the jigglypuff and brought her crashing down with them – the second they hit the ground, the arena floor shook with an earthquake. Unable to keep her focus on the icy wind, the jigglypuff let it die out. Lucas's torterra bounded over – Arceus he was fast – and scooped the jigglypuff out of the rocks with crunch.

I squinted. Sorry, no, it was technically bite.

"Doesn't she know crunch yet?" I wondered out loud.

"She does," Dawn said. "But bite gets more points in contests."

Jigglypuff tried again with the icy wind, which Torterra swept away with a sandstorm imbued with razor leaves. The particles of the sandstorm seemed to get larger – I realized Torterra was using stone edge, but rather than having the stones shoot straight out, she got them to circle the arena. Jigglypuff must have used icy wind again, because the sandstorm suddenly showed signs of ice amidst the rocks and the leaves. Lucas hardly lost any points for that – I think the judges knew the addition of ice was barely anything compared to the creation of the storm sweeping the contest hall, which was mainly his doing. The pokemon themselves were hardly visible, but as time trickled out, I realized: that wasn't the point. The point was in the show itself. And Lucas and his torterra had put on a show bigger than either of them.

"Congrats," said Dawn when we met him in the lobby. He smiled at her.

"Great job!" I said, fumbling for words. "Um… that was beautiful."

He nodded at me in a neutral sort of acknowledgement. Arceus damn it, I was going to connect with him at this contest if it was the last thing I did.

And I kept trying. I kept looking for a way to ask about the trade evolution. We got lunch between rounds; Lucas did not make eye contact with me. I tried to chat with him while we watched Dawn's second round match, to no success. We watched his second round match, between his kadabra and a vaporeon, which was for some reason less impressive than his first. He made it through anyways. Dawn had a frown on her face.

We stayed in the arena to watch the rest of that day's matches. Lucas and Dawn sat side-by-side, occasionally whispering something to one another. I felt so distant from them. When I tried to organize us all going to get dinner together, things seemed to be going my way until Lucas disappeared and Dawn said they were going somewhere else, sorry.

When Thomas and I reached the Pokemon Center for the night, I saw Dawn and Lucas sitting in the lobby, having what looked like a serious conversation. I desperately wanted to eavesdrop, just to know what was going on and to know him better and possibly find what I was missing. Instead we went upstairs. Was I obsessing? Absofuckinglutely but I needed some semblance of control over my life and right now, this wasn't it.

Lucas's round three was his lucario against a roselia, who whipped up a petal dance/magical leaf whirlwind of flora. Lucas just seemed to be letting it happen, which worried me until I realized, from far away, that there was a smile on his face.

His lucario's eyes glowed blue.

The petals and leaves flying through the air stopped abruptly, glowing with blue psychic energy, their stillness compounded by the noise they'd stirred before. Lucario took them and spun them in the opposite direction, but also complicated their flight path into more than just the circles they'd flown in before. They twisted and turned, and when the floral coils passed by Lucario, he unleashed a dragon pulse at just the right moment for it all to look like a dragon breathing fire.

I realized with a jolt – Lucas and I used this form, when we fought together, when we were friends.

When we were friends.

I sat through the rest of his round, watching the cool-as-hell grace with which his Lucario manipulated the elements given to him. The roselia and her trainer never quite recovered from that. Neither did I.

I genuinely don't know if I skipped forward in time during Dawn's third round or if I just zoned out. But when I realized what was going on, time had expired and she'd lost the match.

I still hadn't proposed the evolution trade. I dreamed of regaining Lucas's friendship through it – through establishing a connection of some significance.

"Welp, it's down to you," Dawn said to Lucas when we met up again in the lobby. He was competing second in the fourth round. My heart pounded as I looked for my opportunity, which came when Dawn and Thomas went to sit in the stands. I told them I had to use the restroom and ran towards the backstage area.

I spotted him. I slowed down and tried to catch my breath. "Lucas," I said. He didn't stop walking. "Lucas," I said a little louder, speedwalking to catch up to him. Lucas please I need this you have no idea how badly I need this.

He stopped and turned around, looking at me expectantly. Wait, I know that sounds rude, but that's just who he was, someone who spoke without words. There was kindness in his eyes, in addition to the expectation. "Um… So I was wondering," I said. "I know… you have a kadabra, and I, I have a, uh, haunter, I was wondering if you'd want to trade to evolve? And trade back, I mean, I still want Faith back afterwards."

His expression turned to one of genuine regret. "I already promised Dawn I'd trade with her electabuzz," he said. "Sorry."

"Oh, it's okay," I said, heart falling slowly. "Uh, have a good battle… or, match, I guess."

"Thanks." He turned and walked out of sight. I stood there for a second longer before heading back to the audience.

Lucas wound up losing that match – not because he reverted back to whatever he'd been doing in the second round, but because he got careless and forgot it was a battle, too. The opponent's dragonair knocked out his golduck.

Sometime later, I told Thomas about what I'd tried to do. We were sitting in the Pokemon Center, just the two of us because Dawn and Lucas had been staying together in another room for weeks now. He was quiet for a moment. Then he got up.

"Let's go trade," he said.

So that was the night Faith evolved into a gengar – Thomas and I traded Oliver for Faith, and then traded back. And yes, we asked her first, and she didn't really care. Frankly, neither did I, anymore. The evolution was never the point.