Chance Chapter 5: Help Is Not Coming

Trust and I returned to the cave for last minute training. It was dark and I left my flashlight and bag in the room, but we had his tailflame to go by.

“Test out your mach punch,” I said. “Gather energy in your fist as fast as you can, and punch. It’s more instinctive than technical.”

Trust closed his eyes. He pulled his fist back and held it there. I could tell he was concentrating. White light began to collect around his fist right when he started shaking.

Trust screamed. The light and his tailflame both went out. Pitch black.

“Trust?!”

I whipped my head around, looking for the cause, and when I turned back two giant red eyes stared into mine. The eyes of Lucas’s killer.

I woke up with a soft gasp. Theatrical sitting-bolt-upright-with-a-piercing-scream isn’t my style. That soft gasp was the loudest awakening I’d ever had.

I sat up slowly. Trust was asleep on the floor, his tail extinguished for safety. Dawn was motionless on the top bunk across the room, and Lucas was still. I waited for my heart rate to slow down.

I exhaled. Lucas’s face was sweet when he was asleep; when he was awake he looked more guarded. I knew the stressed crease between his eyebrows too well. He only relaxed when he was sleeping and when he was with people he trusted.

I was that person, at one point. That was in the future. I couldn’t remember who I was now.

Gazing at his calm face, I let the tightness in my chest relax. Whoever we’d been, whoever we were now, we’d get there again.

And I’d protect him this time.




“So yeah, sorry it’s early,” I said, rubbing my eyes as we headed down the Pokemon Center’s hallway, “but we’ve got to get mach punch down by ten.”

“Mon.” He sounded okay with it.

At the practice battlefield just outside, I went over mach punch the same way I had in my dream. He got it working in ten minutes, and had it down in half an hour. I should’ve known we didn’t need to get up at 6 for this.

“Let’s go get breakfast. At 9:40 we’ll… aah, dammit,” I said, “We didn’t stretch first.”

Trust jumped up to poke me in the cheek, then ran away.

Lucas and Dawn were out by 8. I returned to the room a bit later to get my things packed up. When I got there, I found someone waiting for me.

“Hey,” said Looker, “Mind if we chat?”

I sat on my bunk. He took Lucas’s.

“I transmitted the records of what happened to the IP,” he said.

I nodded. “They’ve got it under control, then, right?”

Looker grimaced. “That’s the thing. Not all of the… higher ups really believe in this creation-of-a-new-world idea. I mean, Galactic hadn’t yet shown proof that they were succeeding in that by the time you activated the app.”

“So they’re not going to do anything because I set it off too early,” I concluded, heart sinking.

Looker caught on. “Lyn. No. You set it off at the right time. Anything could’ve happened after that. They could’ve taken your poketch, they could’ve killed you, they could’ve created the new world and screwed up the space-time-continuum and made your app useless. It’s not your fault. It’s the IP’s, because they’re centered in Johto and are more focused on the Team Rocket bull that’s going on right now. And I’m pretty sure Magma and Aqua started duking it out right when Rocket went under.”

“And Hoenn is right near Johto.” I groaned. “So there’s no help coming our way.”

“For now. On the other hand, we know what’s happening from here on out.”

“I guess.”

“I’ve got a transcript of basic events that happened over the course of the next few months,” he said, totally comfortable with the weird verb-object tense agreement. He handed me a diary, the kind with a fake clasp and the word “Diary” inscribed in gold print. “It’s all in here.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime. How are things going?”

I checked the clock. “Okay. I’ll be battling Roark in an hour. After that Dawn and Lucas and I are moving on. Provided Trust and I beat Roark, which I know we will.”

Looker smiled. “Glad you’re readjusting. It’s not too strange?”

“Well, it is pretty weird, and… I haven’t given up on my old pokemon,” I admitted, “But I guess I am getting used to it.”

He nodded. “Good.” We stared at the ground.

Looker coughed. “Lucas… he meant a lot to you, didn’t he?” he said in a low voice.

“He still does,” I said quietly.

“It’s great you’re getting a second chance at that too. Do be careful still. Overcompensation is not ideal.”

“I know.”

He nodded again. “I won’t keep you longer. Best of skill.” Because he didn’t believe in luck.

“Thanks.” I shoved what I needed into my bag and headed back out.




Stretched at 9:40.

Waited at 9:55.

Went in at 10.

“Battle… begin!” at 10:03.

“Trust, it’s yours!”

“Geodude, I choose you!”

“Start it off with an ember!”

“Get a stealth rock going!”

Ah, so he was playing like I’d switch out. Don’t underestimate the fire type.

“Ember again!”

To be fair, I was pushing the fire disadvantage on him. The ember hit, just as the first one had, but did little.

“Rock throw!”

“Dodge and get in there,” I said, switching modes suddenly. “Mach punch.”

Trust evaded the rock with ease and darted in, nailing the geodude in the face (hahahahaha geddit cause most of a geodude is a face…). He sprang back, ready for his next move… But the geodude was down.

“Geodude is unable to battle. Round one goes to the challenger,” announced the… announcer.

“Whoa,” Roark said, pulling back his geodude. “I can’t say that was expected, despite the evolution. Onix!”

A giant rock snake appeared on the battlefield, coincidentally–

“Trust, jump.”

He leaped up right as the onix tightened himself around the spot where Trust had just been standing.

“Dirty trick,” I said. “Mach punch.”

Trust came crashing down on a rock in Onix’s middle, causing the latter to roar in pain and topple over. The rock was cracked. It would heal.

Trust leaped off and caught my eye. He must have landed too hard, as he was carrying his right hand funny. Problematic. Because while he was ambidextrous, as I’d discovered over the last few days, he’d only learned mach punch on his right.

“Onix is unable to battle. Round two to the challenger.”

“Nice catch,” Roark commented. “Continue?”

Trust nodded at me. “Continue,” I said.

“Cranidos, leer!” he shouted immediately, throwing a pokeball.

“Trust, go right, hit left.”

My monferno flinched when he saw the glare, but nonetheless landed a hit on the cranidos’s cheekbone. It worked, but it was considerably weaker than his right-handed punch.

“Headbutt!”

“Get in with mach punch.”

Trust bounded in, but Cranidos ducked at the last second, nailing Trust with a headbutt. Trust went tumbling backwards. He shook his head clear.

“Headbutt again!”

“Wait on this one…”

Trust stood, waiting for the charge to reach him, ready. “Jump over, mach punch!”

It was like an acrobatics act. He leaped just barely over the incoming cranidos’s head, then pushed off the rock type’s back with a two-handed mach punch. Cranidos fell flat.

“Cranidos is unable to battle. The battle goes to the challenger, Evelyn Meyers,” at 10:06.

“That might’ve been the fastest gym battle I’ve faced, ever,” Roark said, withdrawing his final pokemon. In my periphery, I could see Dawn handing money to Lucas.

I beckoned to Trust. He cantered (there’s no good word for a monkey run, honestly) over, and I held out my hand. He gave me his right hand – it was a little red, and he winced when I brushed it with my fingers.

“You must’ve fallen hecka hard on that onix,” I realized. “You did amazing.”

“Monferno~”

I pulled him into his pokeball so his hand wouldn’t hurt him. Roark had reached me by then.

“Hey, congrats.”

“Thanks.”

“I couldn’t analyze your fighting style because that was so quick,” he laughed, “but you think fast, and that’s a good asset to have. And you connected with your pokemon within four, five days. You’re way ahead of the game.”

I felt myself turning red. Stop it, Evelyn. You already know how to play this game. You’ve been a trainer for months.

“Having said that, I present to you the Coal Badge.” He handed me the pin and the prize money. “Also, here’s the rock smash HM, if you find yourself in need of it.”

“Thank you.” We shook hands.




Trust went through the heal machine in minutes, but it’s always best to be careful with injuries even after the machine has been used. I kept him in his pokeball.

“Eterna… is… Oh, it’s back through Jubilife.” Dawn was reading the map. “So we just head back through Oreburgh Gate. Then it’s Jubilife, Floaroma, and Eterna.”

“Plus a forest,” Lucas added.

“I know, I know.”

We gave ourselves a day to get back to Jubilife. The trip was easy with three of us and our one-badge pokemon, but the cave walls still inexplicably felt like they were pressing down on me.

The first time we went on our journeys, we never really went as a trio. We were three separate trainers that happened to cross paths every now and then, often during times of danger. Dawn and I got her pokedex back when some Galactic grunts grabbed it in Veilstone. All three of us went through Eterna’s HQ. We split up for the lakes. Lucas and I–

A chill ran down my back. “What day is today?” I asked suddenly.

They had been talking about, I don’t know, special defense or ice types or sibling pranks or something. “Wednesday,” said Dawn.

I swung my bag from my shoulder. Still walking, I wrangled the book Looker gave me from my bag and flipped through the first few pages.

Wait, they were blank.

I flipped around some more to figure it out. It was a legitimate diary, with blank lined paper for most of the book and a compressed calendar in the back. September through February was filled out in green ink. I checked the first Wednesday in September.

“Valley Windworks.”

My heart started pounding in my head. I remembered this day so clearly. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted so much time training in Oreburgh Gate that I’d forgotten the little girl running down the river, crying because her papa was locked in the windworks.

But how in the hell was I supposed to get Lucas and Dawn to the Windworks that fast?

“Hypothetical question,” I said during a lull in their conversation, “If I told you something was happening a few towns away, and it was a pretty big issue but we could handle it, what would you do?”

“Why?”

“Megan and Tricia and I were talking about it last night.”

Dawn thought about it.

Lucas spoke first. “There’d be people there who could handle it.”

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed.

“What if they didn’t know – like if we were the only ones who knew about it?”

“Contact someone there?” Dawn looked at Lucas and shrugged. “Name a town, I guess.”

“Let’s say… Floaroma.”

“Heh. A town of gardeners. Great.”

I held my breath.

“I guess Jubilife is closer still. Call the local police in Floaroma, or get someone in Jubilife to check it out. Cause we’re hecka far away.”

Exhale. Damn it.

“Would they believe you, though,” said Lucas.

“I mean they might. Would be pretty embarrassing if we were wrong, though,” Dawn said with a humored grimace.

We were fast enough to make it to Jubilife by evening, me debating what to do most of the way. I figured it out by the time we got out of Oreburgh Gate.

They weren’t going to go for it… that much was certain. But no one in Floaroma, face it, would either believe or be able to solve the problem at the Windworks. The police force in Sinnoh was a joke. Hell, the International Police was barely more than a joke. Looker wasn’t even allowed to travel with pokemon for some Arceusforsaken legal reason. They were all about intel over action. Running out of options.

Running.

So when we got to Jubilife, we checked into a room and I went downstairs, saying I was going to check in with my mom and Megan and Tricia. I looked back at Lucas as I left. He caught me looking at him and gave a little smile.

Here I go leaving him again.

Think of the little girl, Evelyn.

“Next – hello.”

“Hello. Nurse, I need to get to Floaroma really fast. Family emergency. If anyone asks for me, could you let them know where I went?”

“Honey, it’s getting late. Are you sure you need to leave now?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“All right. I’ll let them know. Stay safe.”

Why is everyone obsessed with me staying safe? I wondered, bolting out the door.