Ayy she DID it she got another chapter out despite working almost 60 hours this week sdkfa;slfkjsdlf

Also I'm mad that gallade doesn't have leaf blade anymore in gen 8, how tf am I supposed to beat Cynthia's gastrodon when that fucker's a TANK?

Anyway.

Tuesday night, after things had relaxed a little, we met up in me and Thomas's Pokemon Center room to make plans for Galactic's hypothetical lake event.

Looker and I lay out the details we knew from last time – admins splitting up the lakes, bomb dropping at Valor, the Lake Trio controlled by Red Chain crystals embedded in gloves. Sprawled across the floor and bunks with cups of hot cocoa and tea, we talked through strategy and logistics, who could teleport where now that Looker only had the one natu, and who was taking which lake. This was tricky, partly because there were four of us and only three lakes.

"I can head down to Verity," I said. "Def can get me there from pretty much anywhere."

I held my breath, but despite me being Azelf's soulmate, neither Looker nor Thomas brought up me going to Valor.

"I'll take Acuity," Dawn said.

I frowned. "You sure?"

"I'm sure," she said. I saw the determined glint in her eyes and realized that between her former self's loss to Jupiter at Lake Acuity and Jupiter capturing her at the Snowpoint Temple in the present, she saw the encounter as a challenge.

"Valor will be the site of the bombing, and therefore the most grunts," Looker pointed out. "It would be the best lake to double up on."

"Team boys?" said the pile of blankets in the corner.

Lucas gave a cheery thumbs-up.

"I'll be wherever I'm needed," Looker added. "In case the situation becomes dire, I'll find a support."

He meant if one of our lives were at risk.

I hadn't considered before – of the three trainers Looker had been working with last time, only one made it through the lake encounter intact (and even then, traumatized). He'd never talked about it with me, though, or anyone else as far as I knew. Did he just internalize it and move on? What kind of trauma was Looker holding unaddressed?

"So we'll use stealth where possible, aim for the gem on the glove, keep in touch so we can double up on lakes once our own lake is dealt with," Dawn summarized.

"Until then, we'll just keep pushing Galactic back whenever they start rebuilding the bomb and Red Chain," I added.

"We've got time, then," Thomas said congestedly.

There was a ping from Looker's poketch. He checked the screen, frowned, and started scrolling frantically through an app. We all watched him intently. When he looked up, his face was gray.

"There's a blackout in Sunyshore."

Those of us in Snowpoint stayed semi-alert all night, but in the morning, the only updates were that the blackout was still going and that Looker had spoken to Volkner, who said rather abashedly that it was his own fault. He'd been trying to rework the city's electrical grid, but had managed to overload the circuits instead.

"Could Galactic cause a blackout and trick Volkner into thinking he did it?" I wondered out loud.

No one knew. At any rate, there wasn't anything tangible for us to do, so while Dawn and Lucas explored downtown Snowpoint and Thomas kept trying to recover from his cold – he was no better than yesterday, and was definitely sneezing more – I went and battled the gym.

"This will be a four-on-four single battle between the Snowpoint Gym leader, Candice, and the challenger, Evelyn Meyers from Twinleaf Town!" said the ref. "No substitutions will be allowed. The battle will conclude when all pokemon on one side are unable to battle! Battlers, are you ready?"

"Ready!" Candice hollered. The energy of this girl I swear…

"Ready," I said, gripping Trust's pokeball.

"Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh! Woooooooo!" yelled Maylene, who'd chosen to spectate without picking a side and was now cheering vaguely for both of us.

"Battle… begin!"

"Abomasnow!"

"Trust, it's yours!"

Abomasnow's snow warning ability summoned a cloud of ice energy that started to spit hail out over the snow-covered field. Not a problem. Trust had this covered.

"Fire blast!"

Trust gathered and show fire across the battlefield. It hit the abomasnow dead-on, and with the quadruple type advantage–

"Abomasnow is unable to battle!"

I gave Trust a thumbs-up across the field. "Nicely done."

"Thanks."

I was feeling quite good about the battle ahead, despite us being one move in. Candice let out her sneasel.

"Sneasel, ice claw!"

"Trust, mach punch!"

Trust lunged at the sneasel, who evaded and swiped across Trust's chest with her claws glowing pale blue. Trust tried again with his other hand, but Sneasel sidestepped and was suddenly behind him, claws raised–

"Return!"

It happened before I knew what I was doing. Trust dematerialized before the sneasel could slash across his back.

I stood there, frozen in shock, arm outstretched with Trust's pokeball. Candice and her sneasel looked just as surprised as I felt; the ref seemed perplexed.

"Uh, the, Infernape is… Infernape has forfeited the match?" the referee stammered.

"Evelyn, you good?" Maylene called out.

"I… yeah," I said. I became aware of the pounding of my heart. Fuck. I'd planned to completely sweep with Trust.

"Do you wanna let him back in?" Candice offered.

"It's okay." I knew the rules. "I guess… Coeur."

I threw Coeur's pokeball. "Put up an aurasphere minefield."

"On it."

Coeur ran across the snow, dropping auraspheres behind her. Candice's sneasel darted between them, skating across the icier sections that Coeur had to run around. An idea sprang to mind; I pushed it nonverbally to Coeur.

Sneasel started to catch up; as she reached arm's length of her, Coeur suddenly put out a shield that radiated aura energy. Sneasel crashed right into it, bouncing off as if it were a solid surface. Before she could recover, Coeur let go of the shield and rushed at her, purple fighting energy wafting smokelike off her fur. She knocked Sneasel off her feet, sending her flying into a snowdrift.

"Sneasel is unable to battle!"

I'd been gearing up to give Coeur more instructions.

"Damn, I feel bad sending out another pokemon to get one-shot," Candice said, recalling her sneasel.

"Booooo! Have more faith in your pokemon!" Maylene yelled from the side.

"How long did you last against her?" Candice yelled back.

"Longer than you!"

Candice gave her a sly grin.

"Don't say it!" Maylene warned.

Candice shrugged mischievously. "We all thought it." (I had no idea what was going on, and therefore had not thought it.) "Anyways, Piloswine, you're up," she said, throwing a pokeball.

Piloswine appeared, unbothered by the hail that was still coming down. Coeur kept her shield up as an umbrella.

"Okay, we'll keep going with fighting moves," I said to her.

"Earthquake!" shouted Candice.

Ah, fuck.

Coeur's aura shield, which did not extend underground, wobbled as the earthquake knocked her off her feet. Her paws slipped on ice as she tried to stand back up.

"Blizzard!"

Arceus.

The remainder of Coeur's shield was no match for the icy wind that whirled across the battlefield at her. She tumbled back across the snow.

"You okay?"

"Mostly," said Coeur, standing and shaking some ice from her fur. She looked like a ghost-type eeveelution.

"I think we just gotta brute force it with aura rush," I told her.

"Unless I get blown away first," Coeur said as she started running. She started slow and picked up a little speed, her limbs stiff with cold.

"Earthquake!"

Piloswine made the battlefield shake once more; Coeur slipped on ice and fell on her face. Blood spattered the bright white field.

"Coeur? Coeur, are you okay?" I heard what translated roughly to a pained groan, but in aura comm. I switched to telepathy: "Def? Is she okay?"

"Je… je ne sais pas," Def stammered. "I only sense des emotions."

Coeur staggered to her feet. "Put up a shield if you need a sec," I told her.

In nonverbal purple, I heard a dismissal followed by determination.

"Blizzard!" Candice yelled.

"Coeur, it's okay if you–"

Coeur lunged. Piloswine blasted her with another icy gale, but she kept her footing and pushed forward. Purple energy blazed around her, and I realized: if Coeur couldn't get through the blizzard, her aura could.

"Coeur, use aura sphere!"

All the purple energy surrounding Coeur flowed forward, collecting in front of her. She launched it forth in an irregular shape that could barely be called a sphere – maybe more of a blast.

"Light screen!"

Coeur's aura blast barrelled right through the light screen, barely faltering in power, knocking Piloswine down. A moment later, Coeur sank to the ground, pushed over the edge by the ice falling from the sky.

"Piloswine and Umbreon are unable to battle!"

"Rest up, Coeur," I said, recalling her.

"Froslass, you're on!" Candice called, letting out her final pokemon.

I gave it some thought – Def's fighting advantage was no longer helpful against a ghost. Hope had never been a good idea for this battle. Faith had ghost weakness and ghost advantage.

"Faith, you're on!" I said, hoping to pit Faith's evasion against Froslass's. "Use sucker punch!" I said through Def's telepathy.

"Double team!"

Faith's sucker punch couldn't find or target the energy trace of an attack, so she swung wildly as the froslass doubled, then doubled again.

"Shadow balls! At a bunch of them!"

Faith flung ghost energy in vaguely-forwardish directions. The light screen left behind by Piloswine blocked her attacks enough to give Froslass and her double team time to dodge them all.

"Hypnosis," I said, switching tactics. "Stay as hidden as possible."

"Snowdrop," I heard as Faith dove, vanishing into a snowdrift. My mouth fell open. That… That wasn't Def.

"Faith? You know aura now?" I said in aura comm.

"Spruce!" I heard. Her voice in my head was sunshine yellow.

"That's so exciting!" Okay, wait, okay, focus Evelyn. "Okay, like I said, hypnosis, stay hidden." Holy shit this is so exciting.

"Double team!"

The images of Froslass multiplied, drifting in and out of visibility in the hail. Shadows flitted over the snow, some of it from the hail, some of it from the wispy froslass images, one from a small gengar underground (although I had no idea which shadow was her, which I hoped was also true for Froslass).

A chain of glowing gold rings burst out of a snowdrift, targeting one froslass. That double team copy vanished. "All right, Froslass, use shadow ball!" Candice called out.

Every froslass in the room conjured a perfect ball of ghost energy and shot it, lightning-fast, at the snow bank Faith had set off hypnosis from. The snow exploded; Faith squealed.

"Confuse ray!"

Faith sent out a confuse ray that went waggling off in a weird direction, but the whole point of that strategy was to hit a pokemon we could already locate…

"Confuse ray!"

I didn't even see the confuse ray happen, much less which froslass cast it. I only saw Faith pop out of the snow and start making a snowman.

"Faith, not right now, we can do that later–"

"Okay, wait, this is adorable as fuck," Candice said.

"Faith, come on, please–"

"Are you still there?" Def asked me, confused that I wasn't using his telepathy.

"I'm sorry to interrupt playtime," said Candice. "Froslass, shadow ball."

"Faith, uh, snowball fight!" I said desperately.

Faith visibly perked up. She picked up a clump of snow entangled with ghost energy and dizzily yote it at a random froslass.

Miraculously, it hit. Froslass – the real one – fell back, damaged just a little.

"Good job! Keep it up!"

Faith threw another in a totally different direction – okay, right, she was still confused. But she was still self-possessed enough (haha ghost pun not intended) to dodge a few more shadow balls and keep randomly chucking snowballs. At one point, she dove into the snow, and when she reemerged, she barrelled into the real Froslass with an almost–accidental sucker punch.

This did, however place her directly below the Froslass. An explosion of ghost energy later, Faith was down.

"Gengar is unable to battle!"

"Return," I said. "We'll play in the snow again later," I promised Faith.

Okay. So. Three possibilities. Def wasn't entirely an option because of the ghost typing. Prom had a defensive advantage and dark moves, but he'd have trouble hitting. Hope was a flying type, but one with failsafe accuracy.

Froslass and her copies had danced around each other in such a way that I no longer knew the real from the fake, but she'd seemed pretty battered from those super-effective hits.

A risk, but maybe…

"Hope, shockwave!" I said silently through aura.

"Froslass, double team!"

I'd forgotten, in the last several minutes of using primarily aura comm, that I had to use telepathy through Def to communicate with Hope, who couldn't use aura in that way. Which was sort of the best way to find out:

"Okay!"

She could.

Hope sent out a shockwave that looked more like a discharge. It obliterated the copies on contact and connected with Froslass, who spiraled briefly midair.

"Evelyn? Are you still there?" Def said again.

"Yeah, one sec." If Hope knew aura well enough to communicate… In aura comm, I said to her, "Protect yourself with aura!"

"Blizzard!" Candice said, meaning I'd anticipated correctly.

Snow and hail and icy wind hurtled over the field, obscuring Hope entirely. I squinted against the wind and hoped (haha) for the best. When the blizzard started to settle, it revealed a half-buried periwinkle blue dome of aura, the same color as the voice that had spoken to me a moment prior.

"Hello? What is happening?" said a different voice.

"Faith and Hope have learned aura comm," I said happily. "Hope, shockwave, once more!"

Gold lightning split through the blue aura shield, striking the froslass. Candice's final pokemon drifted to the ground, light and airy as a snowflake.

"Froslass is unable to battle! Which means Evelyn Meyers of Twinleaf Town is the victor!"

"Nicely done, Hope!" I congratulated my flying type hot damn my flying type could finish off the ice gym.

"WOOOOOOOOO YEAH GOOD JOB!" Maylene hollered from the sidelines.

Shaking her head with a wry grin, Candice recalled her Froslass. We walked around the side of the battlefield to meet each other.

"Hell yeah," she said, holding up her fist. It took me a second to figure out what to do, but I eventually bumped my fist into hers. "Honestly, kinda figured you'd win based on your infernape alone, but it's good to see you don't even need to rely on type advantages."

"I mean I still do, a lot," I mumbled.

Candice nodded seriously. "Indeed. You sure did lean hard on type advantages in that last matchup, in which you–" She squinted, like she was trying hard to recall it. "–took out an ice type with a bird."

I struggled to form a response. Candice grinned and tossed something small at me. I caught it – the Icicle Badge.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Congrats again," Candice said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta tell my girlfriend to shut up."

After dropping by the Pokemon Center for healing, my pokemon and I spent the afternoon playing in the snow. It hadn't occurred to me that Protect would be incredibly useful for constructing snow forts, but after seeing the results of packing snow over an instantly-removable inner shell, I think I can never go back.

Hope mostly huddled up next to Trust, the warmest of the bunch, while the others had what I think was a snowball fight, despite only half of them possessing hands. Coeur sorta volleyball–served snowballs with her tail, while Prom pushed them out with an ice beam. Def, despite having hands, generally used psychic to lob snow around. Faith hid in and burst out of snowdrifts, casting snow over us all.

The blackout in Sunyshore continued all day. Looker told me he'd checked in with Volkner again, but Volkner got mad.

"He said he already knew he'd screwed up and I didn't have to rub it in," Looker informed me over a poketch call. "But he claims he knows electrical engineering well enough to know it was his fault and not Galactic's."

"For all of our sakes, I hope he's right."

Thomas continued to be unwell, so I brought food from the Pokemon Center cafeteria to the room and ate with him there. The room was big enough to fit our pokemon, so they were all out and about and eating their own dinners.

"Should you really be here with me?" he asked. "I'm sick and we're breathing in the same air."

"You're sick because of that stunt you pulled, not because of something infectious."

"It isn't necessarily non-infectious. It could still transmit."

"I, for one, have not sabotaged my own immune system," I said pointedly. "I'll be fine."

Thomas smiled down at his veggies (some parents promote noodle soup or oran berries; my mom is a leafy greens advocate). "Thanks for doing this. You don't have to keep taking care of me."

"Don't worry about it. You'd do it for me," I reiterated, refilling Trust's bowl with pecha berries. "Besides, the sooner you get better, the sooner you can have seven badges."

"I'm shocked you haven't rolled me out on a gurney to fight Candice already."

I suppressed a grin. "It's weird having more badges than you."

"Historically, that's usually been the case."

"Just early on. And we fixed that pretty quickly."

"You fixed that pretty quickly."

"I didn't fight all those gyms for you."

Cassie, who'd scarfed down her food, jumped up to lay in Thomas's lap. Hope attempted to do the same, and I had to shove my food aside before she knocked everything over.

"Wait, hold on, Hope–"

Hope and I managed to get her onto the bed beside me, where she could lay her head on my lap and get pets without also smushing me. Faith also jumped up for cuddles. Thomas laughed.

"Guys, I'm trying to eat dinner," I said, making no move to do so.

Thomas scratched his heated lap pillow (read: quilava)'s head and hummed a happy noise in his throat. My heart fluttered.

And the lights in the room were dim so we could see the snow falling in the night, and Trust was sharing pecha berries with Silver, and Coeur had curled up next to Def on the bunk above Thomas. The chill outside couldn't defeat the warmth of us all. And there was a golden feeling in my chest that lay somewhere between joy and contentedness, warm and sweet, and I was no longer in love with a boy who wouldn't speak to me, and I was maybe in love with the boy sitting across from me, instead.

In the mayhem of trying to save the world, these things were inconsequential and temporary. But they also felt more important than anything else, and they felt like more than enough.