"Let's try again," Hayley said. "Try really hard to think about how it felt when you were using the attack, okay? Was it a big burst of energy out of nowhere, or did it have to build up first?" Her words fell on deaf ears. Sen didn't need her to tell him to think; he was already focusing so hard that the veins on his forehead had started to bulge. And yet, when he threw out his hands, only the tiniest flicker of blue light appeared around him.

It was their second day out of Oldale, and endurance training had started to get dull. So in order to keep their Pokémon from losing interest and burning out, Hayley and Miriam had extended their lunch break to hold a more in-depth technical session. Barrett was working with Xena on punches. He had mastered fire punch and she had gotten the hang of thunder punch, and now both were beginning the process of adding each other's element to their arsenal. Miriam was watching over them and offering advice using terms that went way above Hayley's head—stuff about electrons and plasma and ionization, some of which she'd brushed against during her Class II studies but was still far from understanding. Over to the other side, Ceres, in a teacher role rather than a student role for the very first time, was demonstrating protect to Zero and Yuna, who had both been given the move thanks to the TM Miriam had picked from Norman. Yuna was struggling to keep a shield up for more than a few seconds due to her lack of focus, while Zero was struggling because he was… Zero. Over and over, Ceres patiently erected her barrier and grunted an explanation, and each time she saw it, Hayley swelled with pride.

That left Sen, and for him, Hayley wanted to test his hidden power. The attack almost always mimicked one of the elemental or supernatural move types, and without fancy laboratory equipment to analyze it and run tests, the only way to tell what type an individual hidden power used was by testing and observation. With Hayley's purse feeling a little light even after a series of victories in the Oldale arena, experimentation seemed the way to go. She already had some clues to go off of: the fact that it had hit Barrett hard enough for him to care meant that it probably wasn't fire, grass, or ice. Steel, ground, and rock hidden powers tended to look more solid and crystalline, water rippled, electricity sparked, and air was usually quick and semi-transparent—none of those matched what Sen had done. Out of the types that remained, the most likely candidates seemed to be dragon, dark, ghost, or psychic; all of those had hidden powers on record that seemed pretty visually close to Sen's. But in order to narrow it down further, Hayley needed Sen to use the attack against different Pokémon and see how it affected them. And Sen was having trouble.

"Maybe he needs to be in battle to use it," Miriam said, coming up behind Hayley and making her jump. Apparently she'd decided to take a break from her impromptu physics lecture. "That's a thing, right?"

"…It's a thing," Hayley agreed hesitantly. "You think it might be linked to what was happening in the battle, and how he was feeling?"

Miriam shrugged. "Could be. Why not have Barrett beat him up again and see if he pulls it off a second time?"

Below them, Sen's eyes narrowed, and suddenly they lit up in the same deep blue they had in the arena. His aura flared around him, spiraling, before disappearing as quickly as it had come. Hayley stared.

"Oh."

"Spite's a powerful motivator," Miriam said matter-of-factly. "Hidden power is a tool that'll let him beat Barrett. It's that simple."

There was a lot to unpack in that statement, but before she could begin, Hayley's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the screen, and bit her lip—Connie. "Hey, can you take over for a minute?" she asked Miriam. "I need to—"

"Sure. Go ahead."

Hayley jogged several yards away for some semblance of privacy and tapped to accept the call. It was voice-only, since the signal this far into the route wasn't good enough for video, and for once, Hayley was glad. She suspected she knew what this call was about, and she didn't want Connie to see her face.

"Hey," was how Connie started out. "Sorry for calling out of the blue—are you busy? I can call back another time if you're busy."

"It's fine, I'm just training," Hayley said, attempting to keep her voice light. "I've got a few minutes."

"Okay, so, the weirdest thing just happened. You're not going to believe this—Skye told me this first, and I didn't believe her, but it's true—you know that guy who was making videos about me? Evrard? You brought him up to me before—"

"I remember."

"Well, all those videos are just gone. It's so weird!"

"Gone?" Hayley did her best to keep her voice innocent and surprised. Inside, her heart hammered against her ribcage. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure! I checked all over to see if he'd just moved them to another channel or something, but they're totally gone. Every single one."

"Wow. Um… Do you know why?"

"No idea. People are commenting asking, but he hasn't responded to any of them. It's like he's gone completely dark."

"Wow," Hayley repeated. "Well, that's—that's good, right?" Inside, she was thinking about the fact that she'd told Evrard to upload a new video apologizing, and evidently he still hadn't. Maybe that was for the best. The less he said about it, the less chance there was it would all link back to her.

"Yeah, it is! It's just weird. Addie and Skye swear they didn't have anything to do with it, and obviously you didn't either, right?"

"No! Of course not."

"Huh. Well, maybe he got a new sponsor that didn't like the videos, or maybe he's taking the channel in a different direction, or…" She trailed off. "Still, I don't know why it would just be my videos then, and not the ones he did for other coordinators."

"Well, w-whatever the reason is, I'm glad he did it. He was being really awful to you, Connie, and it wasn't okay. And you know now that all the things he said were wrong, right? You're not a bad trainer or a bad coordinator. You're not bad to Marcie."

"Yeah," Connie sighed. "All the classes and sessions and stuff she and I have been going to, they've said that it's… normal, for Ralts trainers to screw up sometimes. And that I could've handled things better, and I'll have to be really careful about how I do things when I do go back to coordinating, but that I'm not… abusive, or evil, or anything. I just messed up."

When. She'd said when she went back to coordinating, not if. Hayley's heart leapt. "You're planning to go back on the contest circuit? You've decided?"

"I think so. It's still going to be a while, but—I don't want to give up. I really do like performing, and Marcie says she loves dancing with me, and even Anima seemed excited when I showed her a contest video the other day, so I think I'm going to try. If I don't, then I'll regret it."

"That's great!" A grin broke out on Hayley's face, and she thought she could hear Connie smiling too. "So you don't know when—I mean, obviously no rush, but—"

"Maybe at the start of next year. Once Marcie can go back in her ball, and once Clarissa's doing better."

"Oh yeah." The smile was gone as quickly as it came. "How's she…"

A pause. "She's doing better. They've got her in a regular hospital room here, not the ICU or anything, which is good. But she's still a little confused, and she keeps forgetting things. And the doctors still don't know if she's going to be able to walk again." Her voice grew thick, and Hayley hugged herself with her free hand.

"I'm sorry. Are you still doing okay? Do you—"

"Don't come back! I'm doing okay, it's hard, but I'm doing okay. Just, send me some more videos of Ceres, maybe? She always cheers me up."

Hayley nodded and swallowed past the lump in her throat. "All right. She's actually helping Yuna and Zero work on their protect right now, it's so cute…"

They talked for several minutes longer before the spotty route connection began to break up, forcing them to end their call. Hayley promised plenty of pictures and videos the next time she reached a place with internet, and Connie said she'd send some of Marcie and Anima. In photos, the two of them always looked more ominous than cute, but saying that would hurt Connie's feelings, so Hayley pretended to be excited. At last, she hung up the phone and walked back to where everyone was gathered.

As she approached, Miriam turned and looked her over. "Are you good?"

"Yeah. Just, Connie wanted to talk about Evrard." Hayley sighed.

"He didn't put the videos back up or anything, did he?"

"No. Everything seems fine, Connie just didn't notice they were gone yesterday, and now she did."

Miriam stared at her for a bit, clearly unconvinced that she was getting the whole story, then asked, "How'd it go down with him, anyway? You never did tell me."

"Um. It went…" Hayley glanced around at their scattered teammates and decided she didn't want to relay the whole thing in front of them. Sen, in particular, would disapprove of how she'd handled it, and she didn't want to face his judgment. So she beckoned Miriam to follow her to where she'd been standing just a minute ago, assuring the rest of the group that they'd be back in a little bit. When she was pretty sure they wouldn't overhear, she stopped and took a deep breath. Miriam's eyebrows, by now, were arched so high that they were completely lost in her bangs.

"It mostly went okay," she said. "I mean, right up until the end. I told him a bunch of that stuff you found out about him, and he was getting freaked out, but then I brought out Barrett and I think that was too much, because then he really freaked and started talking about calling the cops—" Miriam gave a bark of disbelieving laughter, and Hayley tried to ignore it. "And then he—I don't know what happened, he went for his phone, and for some reason I thought he was going to pull out a knife, and I panicked, and Barrett picked up on that and attacked him—"

"Whoa." Miriam's eyes were the size of dinner plates. "You attacked him? For real?"

"I didn't mean to! And it wasn't like a flamethrower or anything, he just swung at him once and then I stopped him and called him back." That information did nothing to stop the rising astonishment and glee on Miriam's face. "But he definitely thought I did it on purpose, and he kept calling me a psycho, so I just told him to take the videos down and I—I ran away."

"Holy shit," Miriam breathed. "That's incredible. I didn't think you had the guts to do something like that."

"I don't! I mean, it wasn't on purpose! And now I don't know what to do, because what if he does call the cops? Maybe he called them already and they're waiting for me in Mauville—"

"No way. If he'd reported you, they'd definitely have tracked you down by now. And if he hasn't reported it already, then he probably won't ever do it."

"How do you know?"

"Just a feeling." Miriam shrugged. "Besides, even if he does try to get you arrested later, it's going to be harder and harder for him to prove what happened the longer he waits."

Hayley shook her head. "I just wish it hadn't happened like that. I didn't want to hurt him."

Miriam scoffed. "Why not? He was hurting Connie."

"Not—not physically—"

"So? Just because he wasn't punching her in the face or something, he gets to do whatever he wants?"

"No! But—"

"This is what I was talking about." Miriam crossed her arms and began to pace. "Exactly what I was talking about. When you asked me why I was still training—you and me, Hayley, we're strong now. We don't have to sit around and take it when someone fucks with us."

"We have three badges. Plenty of people are still stronger than us."

"Yeah, and plenty of people aren't. And the ones that aren't?" Miriam's eyes flashed. "You said that bringing out Barrett was too much. But if you didn't use Barrett, or if he was still a Magby, do you really think Evrard would have listened to you?"

"Maybe. He might have."

"No, he wouldn't have. And you knew that, which is why you called him out in the first place. You knew what you were doing."

"I…" Hayley faltered. She had known. And the first time Evrard had flinched away from her, it had felt so, so good. "I still don't think I should do something like that again," she insisted anyway. "And neither should you. Unless it's self-defense or something—if someone really does call the cops, we'd be screwed."

"Yeah. I guess you're right. Better be careful about it… Only for self-defense." Miriam stopped pacing and stared at the ground for a long moment. Then, her head snapped up. "How long do you think it'll be before Xena evolves?"

"What? Um, I'm not an expert, and you know her better than me… Maybe a month or two, if I had to guess?"

"I bet I can make her do it in one, if we train really hard. I want her to evolve by the time I fight Jin. She's been an Elekid long enough—it's time for her to turn into a real threat."

Shortly after they started out again, the weather began to turn. Dark clouds gathered in the skies to the northwest, and a chilly wind blew, turning the air properly cold for the first time all season. There was a rest station near the crossing point of Gullet Sound, and their options were to rush for it or to hunker down and wait out the coming storm in their tents. The latter option sounded miserable to both of them, and so they recalled their teams, picked up their pace, and began to race against the weather. They just about made it—rain had begun to fall by the time the building came into sight, but the worst of it held off until they were safely inside. Moments after they'd shut the door behind them, the skies opened up, and rain began to pound on the roof.

"Ugh. I told you, traveling sucks." Despite the fact that they were just a little damp, Miriam held herself with disgust like they'd been crawling through mud pits the whole way here. She took off her rain-spattered glasses, wiped them on her shirt, and grumbled when they came back with a new series of streaks. "I'm going to take a shower. You took one first in Oldale, so it's fair."

"Okay," Hayley agreed. She knew Miriam would definitely use up all the hot water again, but there were worse things in life than a lukewarm shower. They dropped each of their Pokéballs, except for Sen's, onto the healing machine, and then Miriam charged straight for the bathroom like a Combee returning to the hive.

With the room empty, Hayley changed into a dry shirt, pants, and socks, pulled on her sweatshirt for extra warmth, and hunkered down on top of one of the cots. Traveling wasn't that bad, she found herself thinking defensively. Sure, it would have been miserable if they'd gotten stuck outside, but they hadn't, so it was fine. Still, she had to admit she was starting to look forward to making it to Mauville and settling down for another month. Trying to carry everything she owned in a backpack got pretty old pretty fast.

The rest station had wi-fi—not great wi-fi, but better than the cell signal she got out on the route. She took advantage of it to send the promised Ceres videos to Connie, and then, to pass the time, she opened up the route reports for Route 110. Miriam was set on her Magnemite, and Hayley had to start thinking about her next Pokémon as well. With Barrett's evolution, her team was in a good position to take on Jin, but the gym after that would be a four-on-four. The sooner she started training a new teammate, the better.

Her team right now had a few glaring weaknesses that endless hours at the arena had revealed to her. The biggest one right now was flying-types—nobody was fast enough at range to reliably take them out of the sky. All they were able to do was fire off attack after attack and hope they got lucky. They were also missing a good counter for water-types; Ceres could tank them well enough, but Hayley wanted an ace in the hole to quickly and easily take them out. And the only counter she had for electric-types was Barrett's smoke and flames. A rock-type could take care of her flier problem, and a grass-type could handle electricity and water… But an electric Pokémon would be able to counter fliers and water-types and resist other electric-types. And an electric-type would also solve the problem she'd had nagging at the back of her mind for the past couple months, the problem named Juan. His arena was a giant pool with a few scattered islands, and all of Hayley's Pokémon so far were effectively landlocked—only Ceres could swim a little bit, and not well. Electrifying the pool would be a cheap shot and wouldn't work against his Whiscash or Lanturn, but having the option in her back pocket would hopefully stop the rising dread she kept feeling at the thought of eventually facing his gym.

The routes around Mauville were the best places in Hoenn to find electric Pokémon. Even so, as Hayley examined her options, a frown gradually deepened across her face. Magnemite didn't appeal to her, and Voltorb were terrifying, plus she'd need a class IV license to raise one moment they evolved into Electrode. Hayley couldn't even start thinking about her class III license yet, let alone class IV. Plusle and Minun were okay, but a little weak on their own, and only rarely managed to hold their own in high-level single battles. Chinchou and Lanturn were a no-go as well since they were dependent on water to fight at their full potential. That left Pikachu and Electrike as her native options, plus Shinx, Joltik, and Wattrel as rarer invasive species. And none of those was exactly what she wanted…

The door to the rest station slammed open, and Hayley dropped her phone onto the cot. A boy a few years older than her was standing there, one hand gripping the doorframe—but only for a moment. The second they locked eyes, he tilted forward and collapsed with a thud onto the vinyl floor. Hayley jumped up and ran to him, automatically reaching out and then freezing an inch from his shoulders as she tried to decide what to do. "Hey—are you okay?" Obviously not, but he groaned, so he was at least still conscious. "I'm… I'm going to turn you over, is that all right?" If he'd walked all the way here, he probably didn't have any broken bones. He grunted, and Hayley took that as her sign to get to work.

He wasn't especially heavy, but he was bigger than her, which made things awkward. After a few attempts, Hayley succeeded in pushing him to his side, then his back. Through it all, he stayed limp as a rag doll, only occasionally grunting again. When it was done, Hayley stood up again and stared.

He didn't look like someone who ought to be traveling on a route. He didn't have a backpack. He didn't have shoes. He wore a t-shirt and sweatpants that were tattered, muddy, and soaked by the rain, and every inch of exposed skin was marred by scratches and cuts. Deeper cuts on the soles of his feet had already started to drip blood. In his right hand, he held a single Pokéball in a white-knuckled grip.

"What happened? Were you attacked?" His eyes fluttered open, and he squinted, as if struggling to focus on her. Instead of answering, he braced his free hand behind him and tried to push himself off the floor; Hayley quickly knelt down again and helped him move so that his back was propped against the wall. Through it, she kept asking questions: "Was anyone out there with you? Do you want me to call the rangers? What's your name—?"

"It was him." His voice was scratchy and rough, and Hayley barely caught it.

"What?"

"I know it was him." He tried to sit up straighter, then sagged again, head lolling back. "I told him… that I didn't know what he was doing, but I would figure it out. And then that night I woke up in the middle of the fucking forest. It had to have been him. He's the only one I know with a teleporter."

"Who? Who are you talking about?" Hayley tried again. He gave a scornful grunt and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.

"Ennis."

Hayley froze. At that exact moment, the bathroom door swung open, and Miriam exited. She spotted the two of them on the ground and stopped in her tracks, staring. "What the hell…?"

"Miri, can you get me the first aid kit that's over on the counter?" Hayley's voice cracked, but at least she was no longer paralyzed. Miriam gaped for a moment longer before snapping out of it herself and striding over to the kitchenette.

"Who is this guy?"

"I don't know. He just showed up—"

"My name's Trey," he croaked. "I'm from Mauville, I don't—I don't know where we are right now. Where is this?"

"We're on Route 103, north of Oldale," Hayley said. Miriam came over with the first aid kit, and Hayley opened it up and began rifling through it "You said you were teleported out here?"

"Yeah. Three days ago, I—I woke up in the forest, closer to the mountains, I didn't know which way to go so I just walked downhill, eventually I found a river and was following it—fuck!"

"Sorry!" Hayley quickly withdrew the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball she'd pressed to one of the gashes on his feet. "Just, your cuts look pretty bad, I don't know if you'd want to wait for a ranger—"

"No. Go ahead." He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes as Hayley went in again. While she worked, he flinched and made a few strangled yelps, but otherwise stayed silent. It wasn't until she'd finished wrapping his feet in gauze and sat back to examine her work that he began speaking once more. "It was Ennis. I know it was him. I don't have any proof, but I know…"

"By 'Ennis,' you mean the protester guy, right? The one who tried to march on Rustboro Gym a few months back?" Her words were steadier now that she'd had time to collect herself, but when Trey let out a short, bitter laugh, her stomach still sank.

"That's him. He's been in Mauville the past month and a half, working on… Something. I don't know what. He's been trying to shut down the work Devon's doing in New Mauville, and at first I thought that was pretty cool, because fuck Devon, right? But I went to some of the protests he did, and the way he talks, he…" He broke off momentarily, interrupted by a full-body shiver. "There are some scary fucking people at those things. People who don't look like they'll stop at holding signs and blocking construction vehicles. And one of my friends, he said he got a look at his phone once while he was reading it, and there was all this stuff about explosives…"

A chill ran down Hayley's spine, and for a moment she was back in Dewford Cave, sitting helplessly while Amaya hammered C4 into the stone. Tink, tink, tink. "You think he's…"

"I don't know. But I got in his face after one of the rallies and told him he better not be planning anything stupid, because I'd figure out what it was and go to the cops before he could blow anything up, and he just stared at me and said good luck, and then after I went to bed that night…" He shook his head. "He… He sent Holly with me—" he lifted his hand that held the Pokéball a couple inches off the ground—"but she's a damn Cherrim. It's not like she could protect me. I've been running for my life for three days, I haven't eaten, I haven't slept—"

"Okay. Just—calm down, all right?" She needed him to calm down, because the more worked up he got, the more she started to feel like she was falling. "I'm going to call the rangers, and you can tell them all of this."

"I'll tell them. I'll tell them, and they can arrest him." He doubled over and took several deep, heavy breaths. "But if they can't prove it was him, then—shit." Once more, he glanced up at Hayley through his damp hair. "Hey. You two are trainers, right?"

"Yes," Hayley answered weakly. Miriam stayed quiet with her mouth hanging half-open, as she had for the past few minutes.

"Are you headed towards Mauville, or away from it?"

"Towards. We're… Jin's our next badge."

"Well, take my advice." Grimacing, he pushed himself off the floor and tried to stagger back to his bandaged feet; Hayley tried to help him, but he waved her off, pulling himself up by the wall instead. When he was more or less upright, he had to shut his eyes for a moment, catching his breath. "Take my advice," he finally said again. "Something bad's going to happen in Mauville. Don't get mixed up in it like I did—just get your badge and leave, as soon as you can. And stay away from Ennis."