Welcome to the final encounter!

I've been wanting to do a sort of Q&A after Chance is over – if you have any questions about Chance/the making thereof/etc. please put them in the comments! I'll answer them after Chance is wrapped.

All right, time for Mount Coronet.

(CW: Blood, gore, death)

The business of teleporting fifty-odd trainers up a mountain was no quick one. Looker's natu – who was a xatu now, we'd helped Looker train her a little bit for battle – started by teleporting Def as far up the mountain as she could get, between her memory of the journey last time and the outer reach of Galactic's psychic blocks. They returned and brought Lucas's alakazam and Zeke's gardevoir to the location, and then the four of them came back and brought eight, until eventually all the psychic types knew the spot. And then they blinked back and forth, carrying trainers up the mountain one by one.

The Veilstone strike team headed out early on in this endeavor. Thomas came over and wordlessly handed me a pokeball — Oliver. His electricity absorber. I reached for my own pokeballs, even though I had no idea who I could part with for the end of the world, but he shook his head.

"Stay safe out there," he said, turning back to the rest of the team.

"You too."

I was one of the last to go. The Veilstone strike team had already headed out, but I glanced at Lucas and gave him a thumbs up. He flashed me one in return, eyes aglow with a smile.

We vanished and reappeared in a cavern big enough to fit fifty people (but not all our pokemon). The medical team had already set up shop, which meant lights and emergency care partitions as well as more casual first aid stations that would travel with us deeper into Mount Coronet. I didn't quite recognize the place, but judging by how thin the air felt, we were probably pretty high up.

Looker stood at the front of the crowd, by the entrance to a tunnel. Once he spotted me and Lucas, he waved us over. Dawn was already there.

"Anyone else?" he asked us.

Lucas shook his head. "We're all here," I responded.

"All right, we'll head out shortly. Evelyn, could I have a moment?"

I followed Looker a few steps into the tunnel. "Could I borrow your poketch?" he said.

I blinked, but obliged. "Is… I thought it was one-time use?" I said breathlessly, already understanding his intentions.

"It is," Looker said, fiddling with his poketch and mine. "But I double-checked the technicalities, and since this particular poketch has the right serial number, but has never had the app installed…"

"This one can have it, too."

Looker nodded, handing back this poketch that was both the same and different from the one I'd lost to Galactic, and onscreen I saw a familiar array of buttons.

"You remember the code?"

I nodded. "Up, select, B," I whispered.

"Just in case," Looker said. "It shouldn't come to this."

"It'll take us all the way back?"

He nodded solemnly. "I couldn't change the destination."

My knees felt weak. And we'd do it all again.

"At least I know to do it before they take my pokemon, this time," I said distantly.

"It's only for the worst case scenario," Looker said again. "Worry about it later."

Gardenia stepped out of the main healing tent and gave a thumbs-up. "Evelyn, could you let everyone know…?" Looker asked.

I nodded, stepping back into the cavern and taking a deep breath.

"Let's GO!" I bellowed. It bounced around the cave walls, cutting through the noise of fifty trainers chatting.

I think Ashley de Leon started it, or maybe Michelle Wolfe, but regardless, a sound arose that was half cheer, half war cry. I grinned, pushing aside the third timeline resting on my wrist, imagining how Galactic might have felt hearing what was coming.

Looker nodded to Roark, who was in charge of spacing out the trainers and their teams to fit through the narrow tunnel as efficiently as possible, and then we were on our way.

It was the four of us first – me, Dawn, Lucas, Looker – with the full eighteen pokemon I'd wished for that first time around (nineteen, with Looker's xatu). Prom and Lucas's glalie led the way, ready to put up a protect at a moment's notice. Oliver hung out in my arms. Ashley and her crew followed behind us.

We were too tense to talk, but I hummed the song playing in my ear as we walked.

And I know I'm not alone.

There were one or two Galactic grunts lining the path, but at the sight of multiple high-level trainers coming their way, they ran. We didn't see more grunts after that, which meant a much, much larger encounter was coming. I shivered, and it wasn't because of the mountain cave draft.

There was no preamble. There was only a sudden widening of the tunnel, and a legion of grunts I hadn't had to deal with last time, and already we were in battle. Our pokemon broke into a run – Hope took off, having found a chamber high enough to fly in. Def and Alakazam and Looker's xatu teleported into Galactic's midst – nice, we were still outside the psychic block – and started blasting poison types with psychic energy. Everyone else did their best to carve out space for our side of the fight.

"This way!" Dawn called to us, and Lucas and Looker and I ran off to the side with her, letting more trainers enter the cavern.

Ashley and AJ entered and fell into a rhythm immediately. "Never and Amphy, hydro shock!" AJ shouted, followed by her blastoise and Ashley's ampharos blasting a stream of golbats out of the air. Behind them, Tejal and Kyle came in with attacks blazing, followed by Emily Wu and Matthew Tian, and Maylene and Candice, and I lost track from there.

Attacks flew. My pokemon all but disappeared in this form of battle that was a different beast entirely – I knew battles, and I even knew a degree of chaotic free-for-all, but this shit was war. Dark energy flew overhead and Prom put up a mass protect bubble and Tejal screamed somewhere behind me and it all merged together while still being so much everywhere all at once.

Our side, it became clear, had the stronger pokemon by far – golbats fell from the sky like rain – but Galactic outnumbered us immensely. Almost every pokemon in sight was one of theirs, either a stunky or toxicroak or golbat or bronzor or purugly or something similar, and every time one of them fell it seemed like two more replaced it. Out in the crowd, I saw Omar's gardevoir wipe out a swathe of croagunks, then suddenly get knocked down by a physical crush of psychic-resistant bronzors.

I found Def nearby, fighting with his swords, periodically flashing pink but primarily applying life dew to any injured ally he could see.

Coeur, I saw, was in her element, targeting the normal types with aura blast and the poison types with dig and using every other energy type she knew to take out the enemy. Prom fought similarly, holding a pecha berry in his mouth in case of poison, a pouch of backup berries at his side.

Hope took out flyers with shock wave; Faith popped in and out of existence, tapping pokemon with sleep or confusion before sinking underground again. Trust remained the closest to me, shielding against air cutter or poison attacks that flew at us trainers.

Every now and then, electricity shot past the protect, getting soaked up by the little lightning rod in my arms. I shifted Oliver into my broken right arm, using the cast to insulate myself from the shocks as much as possible.

Dawn and Lucas worked in sync, their pokemon pairing up to watch each other's backs and boost each other's shots. Looker's xatu picked up one Galactic pokemon at a time, teleporting them high in the air before letting them fall to their doom.

Across the room, trainers tag battled groups of Galactic pokemon – Michelle's houndoom leaped in front of a flamethrower aimed at Etana's leafeon; Andrew Nguyen's slowbro let out a heal pulse at Roark's onix; Sean and AJ helped Ethan Tsai limp to the healing stations in the back. Our small army may not have trained all together, but we had each other's backs.

We felt it long before we saw it – a quake that felt ungrounded, like the fabric of the world itself had split. The noise of trainers shouting commands pitched higher with confusion. Looker's xatu appeared next to him – he put a hand on her, then tilted his head at me.

I placed a hand on Xatu's head, and suddenly we were in the biting wind on a cliff outside. My breath caught in my throat – a gaping rift swirled purple and black in the sky above the peak of Mount Coronet, the dark nothingness of space beyond it.

"We're running late," I breathed. We hadn't even gotten through the first wave of Galactic grunts.

"They may be running early," said Looker.

I heard – we both heard – a voice in gold.

We'll slow them down.

Twinkling like fairy lights, a spot of gold, then pink, then blue light flashed past, heading for the rift. I grinned – the Veilstone strike team had freed the Lake Trio.

"Let's go," Looker said, and we put our hands back on Xatu's head and reappeared in the muddled chaos, except a light I hadn't realized was yellow was now red, and the noise had heightened because it wasn't just zubats and glameows anymore.

The legendary golems – regice, regirock, registeel, regigigas – stood above the crowd, as tall and solid as pillars. Attacks whizzed at them, but I watched as Regice blasted an ice beam with the poised solemnity and sheer overwhelming energy of a hyper beam, followed by an actual hyper beam from Regigigas that was brighter than the sun. It skimmed the top of the crowd – I heard a scream and felt a surge of nausea as a newly decapitated garchomp tumbled to the ground.

"We have to get through," Looker said to Dawn and Lucas, shouting over the din. "Bring your pokemon."

"To the other end," I directed my own team. "Look out for each other. Stay on the defensive. Don't go near those golems."

Looker caught Riley's attention and gave him a signal – Riley closed his eyes, and I saw a few members of the Pokemon League flinch as they felt aura communication for the first time. The Elite Four and most of the gym leaders slipped through the crowd of pokemon and around the side of the grunts. Byron's bastiodon shielded Roark and Fantina from a blinding white flash cannon, but crashed to the ground after. Maylene punched a croagunk that got too close to Candice.

The actual Galactic grunts were the easy part of the push – all of their real power was concentrated in the battle in the middle of the room, so with the occasional wave summoned by Prom to clear a path, we made it through to the tunnel behind them. Dawn wiped a little blood from Lucas's cheek.

"Will everyone else be okay?" Maylene said with worry.

I heard a shout – Ashley de Leon was directing a formation of pokemon that advanced on Regirock. Regirock blasted a deadly barrage of bullet-fast pebbles, but a quintuple shield layered in front of the pokemon phalanx held tight. Behind the regirock's back, a machamp reared two of her fists for a punch, connecting with a crunch that left a crack in the rock golem.

I grinned. "I think they'll be all right. Let's go."

The Sinnoh League and this year's Twinleaf trainers followed Looker through the caves ahead, twisting uphill and in and out of caves. We were missing Gardenia, who'd stayed behind as the head of the healing division, and Cynthia, who'd stayed to fight. I lost contact with Def, meaning we were beyond emergency teleportations out. Our excursions outside were brief but snowy, leaving us shivering for a minute each time we reentered the caves. The rift in the sky pulsed violet-black, fizzing with spots of pink and blue and gold that seemed to just keep it at bay.

And soon after that, we found the second wave: a group of twenty-odd grunts in darker uniforms and just enough hair variation to suggest they were better than other grunts, all headed by Commander Neptune.

"Ah, would you look at that," Volkner drawled, standing at the head of about twenty Galactic grunts. "The second-best gym leaders Sinnoh has to offer."

"Who's the first-best, given you were barely one at all?" Maylene said.

Candice snickered. Flint's jaw was so tense I bet he could have cracked a walnut open like a nutcracker.

"We could argue," Volkner said, "but I've always preferred for my pokemon to do the talking for me."

I wanted to make some kind of snarky comeback (something something "yeah we all know your only real strength is your pokemon, rather than anything intrinsic about you"), but already electricity was flying, and the grunts had let their pokemon out, including a darkrai and cresselia, and there were far more than six of Volkner's pokemon in the fray. Flint had already stepped forward with a gesture that said, "Let's dance one last time, old friend," and despite the chaos, Volkner pulled his electivire over to fight Flint's infernape directly, his face impassive aside from a twinge of regret in his eyes.

"We'll take care of this," Maylene shouted to Looker. "I know the clock's ticking. You guys go ahead."

Lucas had already jumped into battle, but I tapped his shoulder and he and Dawn and Looker and I ran past the grunts. Prom shielded us from a thunderous electrical attack that could have wiped us all out of commission.

The Lake Trio's presence in the rift was waning, their small lights overshadowed by the growing violet. We climbed as fast as we could through the snow and the thin air, and as much as our numbers had dwindled, I did the math and knew we'd gotten about as far as Looker and I had gone last time, and I was grateful for it.

Saturn and Jupiter stood guard outside what I knew was the entrance to Spear Pillar. "I'm afraid this is as far as you go," Jupiter said with a grin.

Prom and Trust both suddenly threw shields behind us – a wide sheet of poison splattered against it, dispersed by Jupiter's skuntank.

"Lucas and I will take care of this," Dawn said in a low voice. "Evelyn, keep going."

"Good luck," Lucas added. "Glalie, blizzard!"

I gave Dawn a quick hug before Looker and I used the cover of blinding snow to run past Saturn and Jupiter and into the cave entrance beyond.

"You should wait here," I whispered. "In case Dawn and Lucas need you."

Looker nodded, glancing sadly down the corridor. "I'm sorry I can't help you fight," he said. "I wish I'd trained more."

"That's all right. Next time, you can quit the IP sooner and become a full-time vigilante trainer," I said, laughing in the dark.

Looker nodded with a little chuckle, but something made me pause. I realized his coat was a little torn – his sleeve, in particular.

"Looker–"

He saw me staring, and with a soft sigh, he lifted his arm. His wrist was bloodied, his poketch smashed but still clinging to his arm.

"I blocked a hit with the wrong arm," he said quietly.

I instinctively reached towards it, but didn't have anything I could do to help. "Def, could you?"

Def stepped forward to infuse some life dew into Looker's arm, but there was nothing he could do for the technology that could no longer follow me to a third timeline. If I screwed this up – if we failed for any reason, I'd be on my own.

Looker rummaged in his coat pockets and handed me a key – to the Valley Windworks – and a sealed envelope.

"Take these," he said. "Find me in Jubilife. This should tell me what I need to know."

"Worst case scenario," I said softly.

"Worst case scenario," he agreed.

I hugged him, and it still felt like he didn't really know how to hug someone, but he squeezed me back, and it felt like saying goodbye to my last human ally in the world.

"Hey, I still have faith in you," Looker said, seeing that I was on the verge of tears. "This isn't the end."

I laughed a bubbly barely-not-a-cry laugh. "Okay. I'll see you soon."

"I'll see you soon," he promised.

I think I saw, in this moment, the other reason everyone kept making me promise to stay safe. I think they needed a lie to believe in, so they wouldn't lose hope.

I steeled myself with this dubious promise for the future and headed in.

My pokemon and I weren't walking for long. It only took a few minutes to reach the entrance to Spear Pillar. A pair of stone gates stood partially open, half of the Spear Key embedded in each one. I felt a breeze coming through them – despite being incredibly hard to find, Spear Pillar was inexplicably exposed to the sky.

Mars was waiting for me. "I suppose you're the final boss?" I said, bracing for a fight. "Or, penultimate. Cyrus must be ahead."

Mars shrugged, with a smug lightness that felt ominous. "Not terribly. I've never been gladder to see you, quite frankly, as you've lost already."

My eyes widened. "You already finished–?"

"Cyrus is still working on the summoning; I mean you've already lost."

"What?"

She turned her back to me. "It was pretty easy," she said happily. "We just had to capture the person you love most."

My heart stopped.

"Why don't you come see?"

My mind jumped to Lucas, instinctively, and Mars calling us a "lovey-dovey couple to the rescue," and of how many times I'd seen him die at this point, in dreams and in reality. Galactic had seen him dying in my dreams, when they were looking for Spear Pillar in my memory. But surely he was still fighting just outside? And it couldn't be–

I realized with dawning horror who else Galactic had seen in my dreams – who else with her head on my shoulder, her hand in mine – and who Saturn had seen in person at the Fuego Ironworks and immediately tried to attack, because instantly he knew he could hurt me worse through her than through anything he could do to me.

My heart and footsteps pounded, too fast and out of sync, as Mars led me into Spear Pillar and past the rubble of broken pillars, towards a bunch of machinery surrounding the dais at the far end. And there–

"Thomas," I breathed.

He was barely conscious, his face blooming with swollen red splotches that were already turning purple. They'd chained him to a pillar, and this was holding him upright more than his own legs were. He wasn't dressed for the cold – they must have caught him in Veilstone – and his shivering was the only surefire evidence I had that he was alive.

For now.

Mars's purugly waddled up to him and balanced herself on her hind legs, unsheathing a set of six-inch claws and gently placing them upon his chest, just below his throat, just above his heart.

"You have a choice here," Mars said. "I don't think I need to spell it out for you."

And I felt a strange fury at the fact that she'd gotten it wrong, that she'd chosen a boy I once thought I might have feelings for before we didn't speak for a month and a half.

I looked at the boy who'd saved me a thousand times over. Instinctively I scanned for solutions – psychic teleportation was blocked, it would take several minutes to physically free him, my pokemon were out but the eyes of Mars and her purugly and a small force of Galactic grunts were all trained on us.

Thomas looked up, and he mouthed, "I'm sorry," like it was his fault I was in this position. The damn fool.

The worst case scenario had long since been carved into my soul. I know I told Uxie in the middle of the worst pain of my life that I'd choose the world over myself, and I don't know, maybe that was just bravado and sheer stubbornness. Or maybe if Galactic had aimed a little to the left, targeting someone I loved, I'd have cracked immediately.

Thomas was not the person I loved most. And I absolutely could not let him die.

I raised my hands in surrender.