EDITOR'S NOTE: "I have such a good time writing Sofia and Juliana's relationship. We get a lot of platonic love in Pokémon, and a lot of romantic love in fanfiction, but hardly any family love. Especially in this game."
The pair split up to train, Juliana taking her Nacli and Numel to practice facing the Electric-type Gym Leader Iono, Florian training his entire team. Juliana supposed she should cut back on her catching, but justified it with the fact that Mr. Jacq was taking care of them all and training them all to be guide Pokémon.
So, when she saw a huge, shiny crystal with an entrance, she didn't think twice before going in.
There was a Fomantis in there, a Pokémon that Juliana had only ever seen in pictures. It had a Flying-type Tera Jewel, and it was looking right at her.
Other students were there, too. "Looks like we got our fourth," said a boy, clapping Juliana on the shoulder. "You'll do great, new kid. I heard you went up against Nemona and won."
"She held back to my level," Juliana tried to protest, but the other three seemed to ignore her.
"Help us defeat this Fomantis," said a girl, "and you get a share of its treasure."
Was this how Florian found the pyrite? She'd have to ask him. In the meantime, she could fight the adorable Fomantis, take her cut of the treasure, and go back to school without an embarrassing nickname like "the Jackpot Joke."
She sent out Tinkatuff for resistance to Grass-type attacks. With her help, Juliana managed to do most of the work, earning the right to try to catch Fomantis in an unwritten rule of Tera Raids that she hadn't exactly known. Fomantis didn't even put up a fight, and as a result, she was added to Juliana's team.
She returned home to Cabo Poco to prepare for school and train to face Iono. Apparently, the Gym Leader was a streamer - Juliana didn't have a good enough attention span to watch the streams, but she did get permission to play them while she was making sandwiches with her mother.
"Are you a witch?" she asked suddenly, and Sofia, used to her daughter's random questions at random times, merely laughed.
"What brought this up?" she asked, and Juliana focused on the sandwiches.
"I fed your sandwich to Koraidon and he changed form," she admitted. "And then some guy at school called me a witch. So I wanted to know if you were, and if I was."
Sofia shrugged. "I don't practice witchcraft, if that means anything," she answered, and, when Juliana seemed relieved to finally know, she laughed again. "But if it's something I was born with and never trained, I could have passed it on to you."
"So you're saying you just don't know for sure?" Juliana smiled. "Does this mean I can try to practice witchcraft myself and see if I have a talent for it?"
"Go for it." Sofia put the top slice of bread on her sandwich and offered the lettuce to Juliana. "But there are a few ground rules. Don't set anything on fire without Webby prepared to fight it, don't summon any demons, no ritual sacrifices, and if you see any spell in a book that involves portals to alternate dimensions or love potions, do not attempt it."
"But that's half the fun of witchcraft!"
This time, Sofia's laughter woke up Koraidon, who was tied up outside the kitchen door. He smelled the sandwiches and began to scratch at the door like an oversized dog.
Juliana got her chance to make a potion when Saguaro announced that he was finally letting them near his stoves.
"Perhaps you've heard of the story of Stone Soup," he began, getting Florian's attention off of Juliana's doodle of a Tarountula wearing socks. "In it, a group of people come together to make a delicious soup. Today, I will be assigning you into groups of five to make your own soup. With a recipe, don't go getting creative yet."
As expected, he assigned Florian and Juliana to work together, with Penny, Arven, and Nemona. Penny flinched when she bumped into Nemona by accident, but Nemona merely pulled away.
"You can't put red onions in this soup!" Arven snapped as he pushed Nemona aside. This time, she flinched. "It's a basic carrot soup."
"Onions can be in carrot soup!" Nemona objected.
"They can," Arven confirmed. "But the recipe calls for white onions, not red. Change them."
Nemona looked him in the face and dumped the red onions into the pot whole. Arven turned around and ripped a page from a notebook, folding it into a cone before putting it on her head.
"Go sit in the corner and think about what you did."
Nemona, flustered, didn't even question the order. She just obeyed. Florian and Juliana hid a fist-bump under the table, while Penny herself had to smile.
Arven didn't seem to notice. "You understand what she did wrong, don't you?" he asked the others.
"Dropped the onions in whole," Juliana answered at once.
Arven nodded. "And she didn't follow the recipe. It almost ruined the grade for the whole group, just because she was spiteful and impatient." He grabbed a spoon and fished out the onions. "It can still be saved, though. Florian...and others I'll admit to caring less about...take notes." He nodded to Juliana. "You. Twitchy one. You seem to know what you're doing in the kitchen. Get us some salt."
Juliana hopped to her feet, thinking about salt. She remembered a movie once - "A circle of salt protects you from bad witches." Salt in hand, she poured a small amount in a circle in the pot.
Bad witches beware, she thought, and was promptly scolded by Arven for over-salting.
Arven was then scolded for putting his classmate in a dunce cap, despite Nemona admitting that she probably would have made the soup inedible. And while one of the decent chefs was getting scolded and the other saw a Vivillon fluttering by the window, the soup overflowed.
"And who was watching that soup?" Saguaro snapped as he finished his rant.
Nemona held up her hands. "Don't look at me, I barely know how to make a sandwich."
"I got distracted by a Vivillon," Juliana admitted.
"I had to shut down to avoid hearing every conversation in the room," Penny continued.
"I was being scolded," said Arven.
"I just wasn't told to watch the soup," Florian confessed.
Saguaro stormed over to their stove to shut it off, slipping on the small puddle on the floor. Juliana stepped over him to awkwardly turn it down. Saguaro lifted a soup-stained hand and licked it.
"Red onion?"
