Minor CW for some very minor depression, like very functional depression, like she's mostly okay.

Hey! I'll be in town at 8! See you soon!

The number was definitely Looker's, but he generally didn't text me as a rule. This man wasn't wasting any time.

When he walked into the Pokemon Center's lobby, I was waiting for him. "So what happened?" I asked.

"Volkner and I were out there til late." I noticed the heavy bags under his eyes.

"Volkner?"

"He was trying to help Jubilife get its power back. We were running around the city all night."

"You enlisted Volkner?"

"He was already working on it when I arrived. Besides–" Looker hesitated. "–I've… worked with him before."

"You have?"

"Anyways, we split up to check on the major places the grid could have been tapped into or shut down, and we found no one there. Worse yet, we didn't find anything interfering with those spots, mechanical or otherwise."

"That's… really weird. Nothing Galactic?"

"Nothing."

"What about Twinleaf?"

"I went there next and found all of the Galactic administrators."

"What?!" The nurse at the front counter looked up. "You found them and didn't call me?" I said more quietly.

"Of course not. It was five in the morning and an obvious trap."

"I'd fight Galactic at five in the morning. And if by trap you mean 'the people we'll have to defeat anyways,' then that can't deter us from going."

"Lyn, you walked into a trap of theirs less than a week ago," Looker said. "Not only do you need some time to recover from that, it proved you need more time to… well… strengthen yourselves as trainers."

I recoiled. "Strengthen ourselves as trainers?" I echoed. "Here's a hot take: training doesn't happen in a vacuum. As we train, and as we get stronger, Galactic will be training too. We're not the only ones preparing for a fight."

"I know that, but–"

"Strengthen ourselves as trainers… I'm trying, we're all trying, Arceus damn it, and if amateur trainers aren't enough firepower for you, and you aren't willing to go to the Sinnoh League for help, then how the fuck do you expect to defeat Galactic? You didn't even call Volkner when you saw them in Twinleaf, did you?"

"I did, actually."

My anger fizzled suddenly. "You did?"

"Yeah. I thought he might still be awake, but when I called he didn't answer."

"Oh," I said, unsure what else to say. "Um… proud of you. That's a big step."

Looker shook his head tiredly. "I'm sorry for insulting your battling abilities. I didn't mean what I said."

I realized suddenly that he hadn't slept at all. "Do you need a bed? We've got an extra bunk."

"That's all right." He pulled out a pokeball and released a natu from it. "I'll be in touch later."

"Good night," I said.

He disappeared. I stood there for a second, feeling guilty over blowing up at him. Then I went back upstairs.

We had a little less than a week til the Valor Tournament, aka the biggest tournament of the year, aka the last one of the fall tournament season, aka the one culminating in the Trainer Ball. I was definitely anticipating the Ball more than the tournament itself, although I was trying not to think about it. It had gone so well last time and I couldn't help but hope this one would be as amazing as the first. Images of me and Lucas dancing and reconciling and becoming friends again flitted through my head, and as much as I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment, my hopes were loose balloons that couldn't all be held down at once.

I still wasn't feeling it. The depression from two days ago was lingering, and the air was still heavy and hard to move through. But at least I could move.

I went on another run before getting started with pokemon training. Thomas had saved us a battlefield by the Pokemon Center – we'd opted to stay in Hearthome to train, since the area around Lake Valor would be swarming with trainers preparing for the tournament, but it looked like other trainers had the same idea.

"Maybe we should head to Valor after all," Thomas mused. We'd just left the battlefield, mid-afternoon, and watched three other trainers immediately claim it.

"Mm," I said.

He tilted his head. "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm just tired."

I showered and joined him for a late lunch, feeling exhausted. I was starting to think getting exercise wasn't helping? I'd felt a little better immediately after my run, but now I just felt worse than before? Why wasn't it working?

"Maybe you should try other things?" Thomas suggested.

I really couldn't tell if the "get good nutrition" side of things was helping, or the "get the right amount of sleep," considering I'd slept about eight hours the night before. In fairness, I also didn't know whether things would have been worse without the efforts I was already putting in.

I skipped forward in time twice that night, just a minute or so each time.

Coeur and I were getting good at aura comm without words. I was learning to speak "psychic language" more clearly, while we both were getting faster with "human language." Luckily for me, her idea of "human language" was pretty much the one I already spoke. Learning Def's language had been tricky but ultimately okay, but I'd worried Coeur would turn out to secretly be pentalingual.

"I think I figured out dark pulse the other day," Coeur informed me.

"Cool, can I see?"

Coeur charged and released sort of a… a chunk of a dark pulse. Like if someone sneezed dark energy. "It's just shadow ball, but dark energy," she explained.

"Hm… What if you tried dark energy in the form of a water gun?"

"How's that?"

"Um… Can you get Prom?"

Prom came over to demonstrate water gun for her. Coeur watched and tried another dark pulse, which was more continuous but ran out of energy quickly. She and Prom worked out the nuances of the move – how to charge and release energy simultaneously, how to keep it in a tight stream, where to find the energy needed. "It's internal, like with pursuit," I told her.

Coeur blinked. "Pursuit's energy is internal?"

"Yeah – or, well, it can be. You're a dark type now; you don't need to look outside yourself for dark energy like you do with ghost or ice."

I could see the revelation spread across her face. "I didn't realize!"

"I mean, you did just change types through evolution."

Coeur focused her attention on a target the last trainer had left in the middle of the battlefield. Her dark pulse charged sooner and fuller than before. I realized her gold rings were glowing, barely visible in the afternoon sun.

She released the blast – it all shot forward at once, obliterating the target in a burst of dust and splinters. I covered my face, although the target had been too far away to send much damage back at us. This is why I don't usually use targets.

"Great, so now you can harness the energy much more easily. It's just a matter of releasing it gradually."

I skipped backward so many times during dinner, Thomas noticed and asked if I was okay.

"You haven't touched your food," he pointed out.

"I've basically eaten a full meal at this point," I said, leaning back in my chair. Dialga could solve world hunger.

"You've… oh," he said, realizing. "Why is this happening still? I thought you found an anchor."

I shrugged. "I mean, I've been trying to ground myself in the world around me, but it hasn't been working consistently. Maybe it's not about space after all."

"What about mental health? There's some correlation there, right?"

"There is, but I dunno. It's not that bad right now. I've definitely felt worse."

The next morning "definitely felt worse." It wasn't bad enough to immobilize me, but the air had gotten heavier. Training was mostly me sitting on the sidelines and letting my pokemon sort of just go for it, which was going surprisingly well. Def had discovered he could deflect attacks by encasing his swords with psychic energy, so he and Trust were playing a sort of fiery baseball. Prom was sending water pulses around the field as targets for Hope to hit from increasingly high heights – sure, her moves are "non-missing," but that depends on whether you know where you're aiming.

And Faith, finally, was learning dark pulse. Coeur threw little pieces of dark energy at Faith – enough to bother, not enough to hurt – and after dodging for a bit, Faith started throwing energy back to counter them. Nightshade was a ghost move, so Coeur's dark pulses went right through it. Eventually Faith figured out how to counter with bursts of dark energy, which neutralized Coeur's attacks in firecracker bursts that made her laugh.

Coeur had figured it out: in order to interest Faith in training, you gotta make it a game. They all had made it a game, I realized, looking around the field. Arceus. They didn't even need me. I could black out in the middle of a battle and they'd have me covered. Prom had done that in Pastoria already. Sure, we'd beaten Byron easily, doing quadruple damage against his pokemon. But that was all them. I was just there to be the dumb useless human–

"Evelyn?"

I glanced up. Thomas was looking at me from the next battlefield over.

"You okay?"

I hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He hesitated too before saying, "Okay, just checking."

I tried calling Tricia, because staying in touch with loved ones is supposed to help with depression, and because I desperately needed someone to cheer me up.

"How's it going with Lucas?" she asked.

My heart dropped a little. "Not well," I said. "I did the thing where I proposed a trade with him for evolution."

"And?"

"He's already gonna trade with Dawn."

"Ooh." Tricia winced. "Well, at least you managed to talk to him?"

"Sorta. He was on his way to a contest battle, so I didn't get to talk to him for long."

"Oh, how'd the contest go?"

"It was okay. Lucas got pretty far. So did Dawn. I wasn't in it, I was just watching."

"Oh, okay. Well, don't give up! I'm sure you can get through to him."

"Yeah," I said, less sure than she was.

"You've been friends before; you can do it again."

"Yeah."

"You're a great person, and it's just a matter of him being able to see that."

"Thanks. How's…"

I think I asked her about her internship, and maybe we talked about the bio test she was studying for or something. For the rest of our call, I avoided sparking the vibrant optimism in her that I thought I'd been looking for, but in reality couldn't look at without burning my eyes.

"Evelyn, it's four."

I frowned and blearily opened my eyes. "It is?"

"Yeah." Thomas was standing over me, which I'd come to associate with concern, but his expression was that of confusion. "Are you feeling okay?"

I sat up. "I'm… Well, I'm not great, but it's not as bad as you're thinking. I just feel like I went to bed like, twenty minutes ago…"

We both figured it out. "Well, that's half a day sacrificed to the time god," I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. "Arceus help me if I jump during the tournament."

"You'll be okay. Your pokemon can handle it," Thomas said encouragingly.

I nodded, heart sinking. "I know."

We trained until about an hour past sunset, which ended up being about two hours total. I let my pokemon know that the next time I didn't wake up, they should just go on ahead and train without me.

"I was thinking…" Thomas said that night.

"Yeah?"

"We should probably spend a day or two at Lake Valor before the tournament," he said.

"It'll be crowded."

"I know, but we need to get used to the atmosphere. It's a different environment, and if we train here without adjusting to what it's like there, then we'll be at a disadvantage."

I shrugged. "Fine," I said tiredly. "Let's go tomorrow."

Anyway not my best chapter but let's be real, it's filler lmao