(Y'ALL we got Ni No Kuni on the Switch and I'm PUMPED I can finally play my favorite video game that I named all of Thomas's pokemon after)

Aaaaaaaand we've reached the end of Chancevember! We're five for five folks.

This chapter had two different working titles, but I ended up naming it after yet another track from Madeon's GRAMMY-NOMINATED ALBUM GOOD FAITH I'm so happy for him omg. The other titles were fun but this one draws attention to a part that's gonna be important later ooo

Haha ok go ahead and read

(o CW Evelyn's still havin sadboi hours)

Thomas and I signed up for the 1 pm poffin-making lesson. I'd never correctly cooked poffins before, and being from Johto, Thomas had barely even encountered them. We took a two-person cooking station to ourselves and started to follow the instructor's directions. I was quiet even when the instructor wasn't talking.

"You okay?" Thomas asked, pausing in the middle of mixing his batter.

I jabbed a dry clump of flour in mine. "Mm." I told him what I'd seen – Dawn and Lucas, closer than they'd ever been.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

The dry clump disintegrated into the rest of the mix.

"Well, on the bright side, at least you'll be able to get over him now."

I stopped stirring. "What?"

"Something's clearly going on between him and Dawn," Thomas said. "If nothing else, surely that'll help you move on."

I put down my bowl. "Thomas, I've spent the last few months unrequitedly in love with a boy who barely talks to me, and you think the fact that he's closer to another girl – a girl I already knew liked him, too – you think that's gonna stop me having feelings for him?"

"Yes?" Thomas said, confused.

"Then clearly you don't know me," I said, "because that's not gonna make me get over him. It's just gonna make the feelings suck more." I heard tears starting to turn my voice viscous, and cleared my throat like it was something else. Anything but this hyper-emotional depressive state.

"It just makes sense–"

I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about this anymore. "I think this burner doesn't work," I said in my regular voice, picking my mixing bowl back up. "I'm gonna go use… that guy's stove," I said, pointing at a guy working alone on the edge of the room.

"Evelyn–"

I walked away. "Hey, can I use part of your station? My stovetop's broken," I said when I reached the half-empty workspace.

"Yeah, go ahead," said the guy occupying it, shifting his materials over to one side.

"Thanks."

We worked quietly next to each other for a bit, but once we reached the actual cooking phase it turned out I had no idea what I was doing. I managed to both burn and undercook three poffins in a row, and the pureed berries never mixed in evenly. Noticing that the poffins of the guy next to me were coming out pretty evenly cooked, I paused and watched him. He noticed.

"You might need to…" he paused. "Sorry, I don't want to overstep."

"It's okay," I said. "I might need to what?"

"You might need to switch up the direction you're stirring in."

He poured a new poffin and started stirring, then paused and changed directions. I mirrored him on my side. He gave me a couple other pointers as needed, although as he was overestimating my poffin-making abilities, I mostly solicited help after his first offer. My poffin came out looking like a lump rather than a standard poffin, but it was finally cooked evenly. We celebrated my success, and when I tried to scoop it out of the pot and it crumbled, we lamented its demise in between laughs.

I glanced back at Thomas at some point and realized he was watching us. He looked away.

I shoved the various poffin pieces together, using oran berry puree to try and glue it together in a shitty marbled-ish cake ball. My station partner looked on, amused. "That could be pretty good, actually," he said.

"Only one way to find out." I let Prom out between us. "Prom, do you want to try a terrible poffin?"

Prom was lightly confused, but curious enough to take it from me. "Oh, you're a trainer!" the guy next to me said, his face lighting up.

"Yeah, are you?"

In response, he released a ninetales. "Yup. Are you in the tournament?"

"Yeah, you?"

"I am, yeah. How's it been going for you?" he asked, scratching his ninetales's head.

"I mean, I've made it through so far." Prom was happily munching away on the mutilated poffin, which to be fair might have been less because it was a good poffin and more because it was oran flavored.

"Nice! Same here," he said. His ninetales started sniffing his plate of poffins. "Maybe we'll face each other at some point. Mei, you just ate, those are for later."

He pushed the plate away, but Mei was determined.

"Fine, you can have one," he said, moving a poffin closer to her. She snapped it up instantly. Prom had finished his poffin and was now exploring the countertop in search of more. I poured a new round of batter in the pot.

We continued to make poffins and chat about our tournament and trainer experiences. He was a six-badge trainer from Eterna who'd just beaten Candice and was heading to Canalave next. We exchanged pointers, although once he knew I had an infernape, he said I'd be fine.

He noticed my togepi-patterned shiny stone necklace and asked about it. I told him about my togekiss.

"You managed to find one?" he said, seeming deeply interested.

"Yeah, I… did a favor for the bike shop guy in Eterna, and he gave me an egg."

He stopped mid-poffin pour. "Mr. Dupont?"

"Yeah?"

"That's Cynthia's dad."

"What?" I remembered Mr. Dupont mentioning a daughter… who'd given him the egg. A series of conclusions tumbled through my head.

"Your togepi is probably–"

"–descended from Cynthia's togekiss," I finished. "Arceus. I had no idea."

"Well, if sometime in the future you have a togepi egg to spare, give me a call," he said with a grin.

I realized suddenly that we hadn't really introduced ourselves. "Sure thing. I'm Evelyn, by the way," I said.

"Matthew."

We shook floury hands, and the name stirred a forgotten memory – I'd fought him at this tournament last time around. He eliminated me in the fourth round. More surprisingly, he'd had a togekiss last time.

I stirred my poffin mix thoughtfully. If he was from Eterna, and knew the bike shop man, then surely the togekiss he'd fought with wasn't…?

My poffins came out progressively more-intact, and while I never quite reached the standard disk shape, I considered them Functional Poffins, and thus a success. When 2 pm rolled around, we were shooed out of the poffin tent to make room for the next group. Matthew and I said goodbye; he went to go find his girlfriend while I headed towards someplace Thomas wasn't.

Thomas was waiting for me outside the exit gate, though, and when I walked past him he followed. "Evelyn," he said.

I kept walking.

"Evelyn, please."

The plea in his voice caught me off guard. I stopped.

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I'm sorry I brought up… I'm just worried for you." Thomas's words tumbled out in a fluster. "I wish you weren't hurt by him."

I exhaled slowly, not turning around. "Me too," I said softly.

"So why…?"

"I can't… it just doesn't work that way," I said, shaking my head. "Logicking my way through reasons why I want to and should get over him doesn't help me actually get over him. The feelings are just there, and once in a while they're nice, even though right now they just suck, and the memory of the better times keeps me hoping."

"You still have hope?"

"Of course I still have hope." I turned around.

Thomas looked at me sadly. "How?"

I shook my head, searching for words.

"Azelf chose me as a soulmate," I finally settled on. "Maybe it's his fault. Maybe it was always mine. Too much will, either way. Knowledge doesn't stop it, emotion doesn't stop it. It just… is. It's not something you can help me with."

There was a heaviness in Thomas's expression. "All right," he said. "I guess… let's just go see the round four pairings."

Dawn was already there, without Lucas. "Jonathan showed up," she explained, "so they're hanging out."

"Is he doing okay?" I asked, sitting on the bench next to her. Thomas struck up a conversation with Tim Raines.

"As well as he can." She grinned in a way that told me he would be fine. "You did kinda thrash him in that battle. Your pokemon were coming out with moves I'd never seen before. What was that ball of purple energy your umbreon used? It didn't look like shadow ball."

"Oh, that was aura sphere." I explained how they'd been learning to use aura, first for communication, then for battling.

"Damn, so they can communicate as well?"

"They've been able to for a while," I admitted. "We've been talking through Def's telepathic abilities, but now I've got two modes of communicating. The non-psychic communication can reach dark types like Coeur and get through Galactic's psychic blocks."

Honestly, maybe these weren't things I should be telling my rival. Now she'd know that taking out Def and Coeur first would massively weaken our battle system. But with her as an ally, especially against Team Galactic, this was worth whatever recreational battle disadvantages I'd gain.

"The backup communication is a good move," said Dawn. "I know Lucas regretted sending Magic out so early, even though he's one of his strongest."

"What?"

Dawn and I stared at each other, one confused and one looking like she'd just fucked up somehow.

"Uh… you don't… sorry, I thought you…" she stammered.

I waited, still confused.

"…Lucas… not many people know, but I thought you might already… his pokemon have names."

I was lost for words. Pokemon names aren't exactly rare, but Lucas had never… As long as I'd known him, he'd always referred to his pokemon by Torterra, or Kadabra, or Infernape back when Trust was his.

"They have… secret names?" I finally got out.

"Yeah… don't tell him I told you," she said nervously.

"I won't," I promised. "What are their names? You said one was Magic?"

"Magic's his alakazam," Dawn said.

And suddenly I remembered Def telling me he'd figured out the move psychic through "magic."

"Def, you knew Lucas's pokemon have names?" I asked.

"Oui. We all know." All my pokemon knew this already. "Tu n'as pas?"

"Nope."

According to Dawn, Lucas's glalie was Whim, his houndoom was named Nerve, and his lucario was Ardor. His golduck was Luck, which further explained why Def had said, "Luck evolved," after my first tournament battle against Lucas. I thought he'd been referring (with weird grammar) to Hope evolving upon crashing into the good luck charm around my neck, but Lucas's golduck had also evolved during that battle.

"…and his torterra's name is Chance," Dawn said, "because he saw his starter as an opportunity."

"Opportunity for what?"

Dawn shrugged. "Independence. Adventure. Getting to leave Twinleaf."

"Does he not like Twinleaf?"

"I don't think he dislikes it so much as he just feels stifled there. You know, small town, not much to do."

I nodded, although this had also taken me by surprise. I hadn't realized he felt this way about our hometown. What about his family and friends? Did they make a difference to him?

What else did Dawn know about him that I didn't?

"Do you feel the same way?" I asked her. "About Twinleaf."

Dawn shrugged. "Yes and no. I'm glad to be out here for different reasons."

At that point, Lucas arrived on the arena concourse. Dawn and I both said hello and he only acknowledged her presence. I don't know what I expected, but I sure as hell was hurt by it anyways.

His torterra's name was Chance. I guess in a lot of ways our starters were a chance for all of us – symbols of the beginnings of our pokemon journeys. I'd kind of lost the thrill of it this time – partly from knowing I'd be picked already, partly from losing Bree as my starter, partly from the whiplash of, you know, everything I'd just come out of – but if anything, for me they were symbolic of a second chance.

In another sense, our starters were even more about chance now than before, considering the things that had changed starting from day 1. What I mean is, the chance-dependent changes and consistencies between time jumps felt like a recent thing, but I'd been dealing with those since the day I walked onstage and received a chimchar instead of a piplup.

Speaking of changes and consistencies…

The crowd – the top 32, plus whoever else was around for the selections – quieted once the concourse music swelled. This time, bubbles with trainers' faces in them floated across the screens, popping once they reached their matchups. I found my face (3:30 pm, Diamond Arena) and waited for my opponent's to land in the spot next to mine.

A bubble containing Dawn's face drifted dangerously close to my matchup, which almost made me miss the one that did pop and settle across from my picture.

"Well, fuck," I breathed.

Because, speaking of changes and consistencies, the name across from mine was Matthew Tian. The same one I'd made poffins with not half an hour earlier, and the same one who'd defeated me in the top 32, last time.

"Oop, better get going," Dawn said, getting up. I found her battle in a 3 pm Pearl Arena slot. "See you."

"See you."

Lucas left with her without a word. I sighed, watching them go. He was holding his shoulders stiffly, which made them look broader but not as soft as they usually seemed.

I wondered why he was hiding his pokemon's names. I guess I'd never know what they'd been named last time–

Wait.

His starter – his chance – was the chimchar last time.

Trust had been named Chance.

ft. Matt, who's been reading Chance + helping with the Big Chance Project that I'm hoping to start actively advertising next month (in time for the five year anniversary of the beginning of Chance, that's right, this story is a first grader), and also Mei, One Floofy Dog.

See you next chapter!