Chapter 336

Chapter 336

CHAPTER 336

There was something uniquely unbearable about awkward elevator rides, the kind of discomfort you couldn't experience anywhere else. Maybe it was the cramped space or the endlessly looping, terrible music. Or the way I kept glancing to the side at Melody because of the tight confined space and how she kept tapping her heel on the floor. For what felt like the thousandth time, she clenched her temples, and the motion was accompanied by the muttering of a coming migraine. My mind drifted, tempted by the thought of breaking free and soaring away on Princess just to avoid the weight of today's responsibilities. Running would unfortunately get me fired, though.

"Any tips?" I mumbled, fingers fiddling together. "I mean, what should I even say?"

"Just stay quiet unless directly spoken to. Mr. Remington's not someone you can talk to without thinking," Melody warned. Out of her purse, she flicked open a tiny compact mirror and fixed up her already-perfect hairdo as if it needed to be adjusted. It looked perfect to me already; the light brown locks framed her face like they had been carefully sculpted that way without her input. A single strand dared to fall out of place, but she quickly tucked it behind her ear, her movements precise and measured. She snapped the mirror shut with a soft click and sighed. "I just don't understand how a person can be this... unpredictable."

"Haha..." I let out an awkward laugh and scratched the back of my neck. "I'm just trying my best."

Mel sighed again. "I know."

"And I mean, wasn't the battle great?" I asked with a slight lean, inching forward. I'd watched over the footage already, having downloaded it on my phone before leaving the Gym. Despite there being plenty of cringe moments—instances where I or my Pokemon had lost their character or once again missing obvious traps that could have been spotted like that Trevenant's trick, I hadn't felt the awful self-loathing that usually came from analyzing myself. Granted, there was some loathing, and it most likely would have been different if I lost, but...

Honestly, right now? Who cared if I lost? I'd do another thousand battles like these if I could. It was too bad Gardenia would be busy from now on.

Kicking my feet and lamenting at how long this elevator was—seriously, how tall was this tower—I continued, "I'm sure it'll sell... there are plenty of great moments. And Gardenia's tough! It's not like she went easy on me; I beat her starter! Kinda. I mean she was holding back skill-wise, but it's still, like, a statement." Gardenia's Roserade had been far more versatile than I'd expected her to be. I was willing to bet her red bouquet could control flames as well as her blue one could control water, which was an amazing counter to fire types if she needed it. "No one can say I was just handed a victory over."

Melody's lips flattened, and she crossed her arms. "It isn't about if your battle was of an appropriate level or not. Objectively speaking, you were given an advantage no other trainer will get," she said, her tone a little dry. I didn't blame her, considering I once again had screwed up Poketch's plans. "Oh boy, they are going to be up in arms."

I tried not to wince. "Yeah." For example, Aubri had already complained about me getting unfair advantages due to my closeness to the League a while back. This would just reinforce her worldview and make her sour on me again. "I guess there's no way around it."

"You start dating Maylene and you suddenly get to fight a Gym Leader twice? It'd be a miracle if we could even spin this any other way."

"I haven't even gone public with that yet!" Though I had been planning to today before talking to Melody about it.

"People aren't blind, Grace," she chided. "You're not being discreet at all. We let it slide because you were doing a good job until now, but—"

The elevator finally dinged, and the doors opened to a wide room made of darkened tiles like obsidian. I quickly paced behind Melody, who walked in large strides that were hard to keep up with. I'd be meeting Remington McMillan for the first time ever today, and needless to say, I was nervous. That was part of why I'd tried to justify myself to Melody since I'd told her the news earlier today. My hip felt light with only Angel and Buddy attached to my belt, and I adjusted my Mimi-necklace for reassurance. In front of the doors was a straight-laced secretary at a desk sitting with a bored Kadabra levitating a strange, glowing brain teaser puzzle back and forth with her spoon.

"Sadie. We're here to see the board," Melody said.

"Mr. McMillan and his son are inside and will see you in momentarily," the girl droned. I pitied her, working in this somber room all day. There were windows, but the dark tiles made it feel like there was no ambient light in the room even in the late afternoon.

My liaison's eyebrows creased. "I thought it'd only be Mr. McMillan in today?"

"Landis wanted to sit in the meeting," Sadie said in that same monotone voice. She tilted her head, a finger on a tiny listening device in her ear, and she nudged her head. "Kadabra, send them in." The words were barely audible to me due to her being way to my left. I touched my new hearing aid and lamented how worse it was than my last, even if it was just temporary until this was dealt with. At least this place was quieter than downstairs.

The psychic nonchalantly waved a spoon, and the great double doors rattled with psychic energy. The shield present had honestly been so weak even Cass would have been able to brute force it—no offense to them. They'd done a great job against Gardenia's Torterra today; I just felt like the protection afforded to such important people wasn't up to par with the threats they could face. And only one Kadabra? What if you just focused on her, making her concentration fray and allowing other assassins into the room? Hell, she could just die from a stray attack through one of the windows and there would be no more protection. What if—

Melody interrupted my racing thoughts by stepping inside. Oh, Arceus, I was nervous. I found myself wiping the sweat off my hands before following her into the thankfully brighter room, even if it was practically empty; there were no decorations, no plants, no nothing besides the long table and a row of chairs, and the sunlight of the late afternoon basking the room in its glow. It was larger than you'd think, with a table long enough to fit the entire board and then some if need be. Small water bottles had already been placed beside what I assumed were our seats. Melody motioned to me, and I anxiously shuffled into the comfortable chair. She sat to my right so I'd hear her.

It was my first time seeing Remington McMillan up close. I'd seen pictures, videos, footage on the news—but most recently, I'd seen him from afar at Craig's ceremony.

He was just a man—frail, soft, and visibly aged. There were only wisps of white hair remaining on his head, arranged in a combover that was being asked to do the impossible. His skin was a network of wrinkles, so much so that it seemed harder to find a smooth patch than not. Yet, unlike some of the other board members I'd seen at the ceremony, his eyes were sharp and dangerous, as if the years hadn't dulled the keen gaze that once built a technological empire across Sinnoh.

Built and maintained it, even with Cynthia's rise.

Beside him was a secretary of some sort with the same earpiece I'd noticed moments earlier and a phone that I assumed was here for her to record things. She glanced toward me for a moment, then away instantly, almost uncomfortably. She was scared; fear was easy enough to read.

Sat at his side sat his son Landis, feet up on the table with a smug smile as he looked at me. He looked absolutely delighted to be here—a stark contrast to his father's solemn look. There was a laptop closed at his feet, along with a notebook and a pen. From what I knew, he was in his forties and kind of reminded me of what Louis would have been like had he never gotten a reality check in his formative years. Hell, he even had blond hair to boot, though his was more of a dirty blond like rather than Louis' pristine blond.

Melody dipped her head for a moment. "Members of the board."

I glanced at her, wanting to know if I was supposed to say anything before I remembered that she had literally briefed me on this like an hour ago and that I'd just forgotten because of the anxiety. "M—members of the board," I mumbled. Only a moment later did I dip my own head. "It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time."

"Pleasure's ours," Landis said. I had to angle my head to the right, toward him and his father, in hopes of catching their words. "It's overdue, really. Dad says that it's not how we do things, but he's a little old-school."

A strange silence settled in—not awkward, but heavy despite knowing that Remington couldn't hurt me at all. I was pretty sure he wouldn't even be able to knock me on the ground physically. He had barely looked my way when I stepped into the room and was slowly drumming his fingers on the table. His son cleared his throat and sat properly, removing his feet from the table, and he muttered something under his breath I didn't catch.

"Now we can begin in earnest," Remington said with a polite smile he must have practiced more times than I could count. "Grace Pastel. In all my years leading this company—fifty-two years—I have never had someone as unpredictable as you under Poketch's employ." He stroked his chin with a contemplative look, almost amused. "It's as if you know exactly how to tow the line between talented and useful, and liability who cannot be controlled. I wonder how you do it, sometimes."

Melody spoke up. "Respectfully, Mr. McMillan—"

"The young lady can speak for herself, can't she?" he interrupted her. Melody hid her grimace well, but not her flexing fingers under the table. "Can you blame me for being intrigued?"

For the first time, he looked at me. I met his milky, baleful grey eyes and stopped myself from sputtering out some non-answer to stall for time.

"I had no idea today would happen at all. The battle was offered to me as... more of a personal affair," I tried to explain. "I had no idea the badge would come along with it."

"Yet you took it regardless."

"I did. And I'd do it again." Oh God. I would do it again, but I'd spoken without thinking. "It was the best battle I've ever had. It was far more meaningful to me than some rematch against Byron."

Theoretically, I could have refused the badge scheme, but I wasn't going to let Maylene's gift to me go to waste, nor would I allow the battle to be stripped of part of its meaning. It was reignition, yes, the rebirth of passion, but it was also a union between me and my girlfriend, along with the approval of her family. That was what the badge meant to me.

Surprisingly, he rested his cheek against the palm of his hand and hummed—a far more... youthful gesture than I'd expected. "You're speaking in feelings, not in Pokedollars. Try again."

For a moment, my eyes could only blink. "Uh. Okay?" Melody seemed tense—more tense than I'd ever seen her. I could literally hear her teeth gnawing despite being half deaf. I leaned forward in my chair. "I mean obviously people are going to be pissed when this is out, and a whole lot of interviews and preparations just went out the window. I was given an opportunity no one else has." Not that Gardenia was an easy fight at all.

I stopped to think for a moment, taking deep breaths as if to blow away the nervousness. A good method I'd found to soothe my nerves was to remind myself that we were all weak, creatures of the flesh no matter what social power we amassed. I could kill him just as easily as he could end my career, really.

Besides the hardest of superfans like Edith, trainers' reactions would majorly range from indifference to hatred, especially since this wasn't the first time I'd been put ahead by something other than my own skill. Hell, I was sitting in this very room because I randomly met Craig near Snowpoint and he felt bad we'd almost died in Coronet—not that he hadn't seen potential in me. I was allowed to join the LTIP earlier and catch more than six Pokemon, I'd been given the secret to evolving Electivire, I was involved with the government, bla bla bla—you could honestly make an endless list of the advantages I'd been given. I didn't feel bad about it. Not anymore, at least. As Craig himself had once said: luck was one thing, but correctly assessing and making use of the opportunities at your feet was a skill of its own.

My bias was obvious, and this wouldn't move any numbers. Honestly, maybe trainers themselves were a lost cause, but that was the thing, wasn't it? I wasn't staying here.

"I'm leaving after the Conference," I said. "I doubt Unova will care for this at all."

"Better," he said, this time tapping two fingers at once. I assumed he already had these answers. Did he want me to get to them on my own to see my worth? I hated the way he spoke. The way he only saw me as a number to exploit. But I only saw the company he had created as a megaphone to spread my name far and wide, so I was using him as well—to a much lesser extent. He was the one with all the power and leverage, and he would be until I was like Craig. "What do you think, Landis?"

Like an unmuzzled Lillipup, or a pet having finally been given attention by its owner, he slicked his hair back with a lazy faux-grin. "I think it'd be a waste to let her go." My eye twitched. "Craig played things too by the book. She's risky, but there's also opportunity, especially in a foreign market."

"Well, if I based every decision off what you said, Poketch would have gone under twenty years ago."

Landis' cheeks reddened, but only for a moment. "Whatever you say, old man."

Their little... whatever this was had allowed me time to think. "It isn't like Sinnoh's market is completely ruined for me." Or at least I thought so. I was honestly speaking out of my ass and just trying to sound confident. "We should let time pass post-reveal to see if sales for my merch and stuff take a hit. And honestly?"

"Hm?" Remington took a sip of water.

"I don't think civilians will care as much. I mean the ones who are deep in trainer culture will," I said, thinking of forum-browsers. "But the vast majority of the people who buy my merch? They won't care beyond like, the first day, I bet." People like my dad, people like Jess from piano class? They had only gleaned the surface of what it meant to be a trainer. "They're going to think it's weird for sure, but one look at that battle, and I bet you we'll come out the other side of this more positively than not."

This, I was actually certain of, and these people were the vast, vast majority of people in the country and Poketch's consumers. The ones who only tuned into battles during the Conference or tournaments throughout the year, or for a few trainers they liked, and nothing else.

"Ronaldo's been down in the dumps since we started dating." With a pensive sigh, she paused, and Cecilia heard her rolling around in her bed. The same bed she'd been in when Cecilia had left this very morning.

The Unovan scoffed. "Did you spend all day doing nothing?"

"What? It's not like I have a Grand Festival to prepare for. I deserve a break, Cece."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Whatever. What's this about Ronaldo?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to cheer him up. Maybe I can set him up with another girl and we can do a double date thing."

Cecilia rolled her eyes so strongly they nearly receded back into her skull. "And have you hang off my arm the entire night? Are you stupid? Do you want to torture him?"

"Not like you aren't doing the same thing to your other friend," Temperance dared to fight back. "I'm surprised she's still hanging out with us. She obviously isn't coming today because you aren't."

Emilia...

Emilia was odd, really. Sometimes Cecilia wondered why her friend even looked at a person like her this way and why it seemed to get worse the longer this new relationship went on. Why even like her, and why lie about it? She'd asked twice more if there was a problem with the state of things, and twice more Emilia had said no. And she didn't even use the situation—being with people she could forge connections with to further her career—to her advantage. Instead, all she did was attempt to babysit Cecilia out of fear that she would fuck up somewhere.

Cecilia wasn't naive. She knew that this thing with Temperance didn't have legs to stand on for long, even if her girlfriend wanted it to. It was just new. Something other than Grace to experience—

However, that justification fell flat when she kept pretending it was Grace under her and not Temperance during the nights they spent together. Still, this was fun, and Temperance was good at making her laugh sometimes.

"You're right," she finally admitted. "I'll talk to her again today and try to convince her to stop coming." There were only so many hours in a day. Between training and integrating herself within a new circle, there was very little of it, but Cecilia was sure she could make time for her if she needed it.

"Did you just... relent to something? Am I changing you—"

Cecilia hung up on her. She hated that idea, now, the notion that she was being molded by someone. She let out a silent laugh, knowing that she might as well have been fighting shadows with how ineffective she'd been up until now to counter this. But little by little, she was becoming someone. A person.

She was still climbing those stairs.

One bottle of water later, Louis found Cecilia sitting under the cool shade of Lehmhart's body. She fought away memories of Grace complaining about the heat with a shake of her head. With her, she had a snack Temperance had bought instead of made. It was an artisanal energy bar, elegantly packaged in matte foil with gold accents that cost way more than it was worth.

"Doing okay?" Louis asked, patting the Golurk on the leg. Lehmhart answered with a high-pitched, satisfied sound. His range was improving massively lately thanks to Temperance's training.

He had grown into himself, fully becoming the man he was always meant to be, embodying the potential that had once only lingered as a promise. It was one thing to speak of a dream, and another to make it a reality.

"I suppose." Cecilia crouched and slowly munched on her snack. "Where's Audino?"

"With Ninetales. He's been struggling the most," he said. "What do you think about our progress so far? At this rate, we'll be ready to welcome Pokemon, both wild and trained, by the start of the next Circuit." His voice brimmed with the excitement of a boy on his birthday in a way Cecilia couldn't help but smile at.

They spoke of the sanctuary for a few minutes. Of future plans and how Louis was studying how to care for different Pokemon types on his own time with the very book Justin had planned on bringing him back from the Canalave Library before he died. Hiring was already in progress, and while his first few years would be backed by Justin's father, it was his hope for this sanctuary to run on donations sooner rather than later.

"Do you have a name for it yet?" Cecilia asked. "'The Sanctuary' isn't great."

"I haven't thought of it much, actually. I was thinking of either naming it the Floaroma Sanctuary—"

"Come on. You can do better than that," she teased.

There was a moment of tension in the air. A fist clenched at his side, and the chewing of his own tongue. Cecilia noticed his neck tighten as his next breath only squeezed past his contracted esophagus.

"Listen, Cece—" he groaned, as if speaking to her was suddenly the most difficult thing in the entire world. Feeling the rebuke suddenly come, the Unovan found her mannerisms mimicking Chase's as she lowered her cap until she couldn't see his face. "This is... this is a huge project of mine. I've been working toward it for half a year now. I—I know you're feeling hurt, but please don't... project that onto me."

"What?"

"You've been meaner ever since Grace broke up with you. And you're angry, I can tell!" She could see his arms move with his words, each gesture akin to those one would make when trying to calm down an aggressive beast. "And this new girlfriend of yours... well, I don't know. Just don't take it out on me—it feels belittling. Please."

"I—I wasn't being serious."

"The words cut all the same. I know others like Chase or Pauline can take it, but not me. And I wouldn't do it with Emilia either if I were you. She'd been acting odd lately. I don't know."

The flowers at her feet swayed in the wind. "I thought—" no, that wasn't what she should have been saying. Justifications would bring her nowhere. Her eyes shut tightly, and she bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I should leave, shouldn't I?"

"That's not what I—"

"I get it. You don't want me to leave, but honestly, it might give you some peace of mind if I did." He'd be better off if Grace was here instead of her. He'd wanted to go back to her anyway. Cecilia finished her energy bar in one bite and shot up. Louis' face was wrought with pain. "I'll leave you my Pokemon here and come back at the end of the day."

"Hold on, I—"

"Of course, I'll have to take Lehmhart to fly. Could you change into your rocket mode, darling?" Cecilia stared up at the construct, whose eyes dimmed, and with an ethereal sigh that let her know he would eventually stop doing this, his body began to shift.

The plates along his body began to grind and shift with a slow, deliberate movement, revealing the intricate mechanisms beneath the ancient armor. He used to be slower at this, much slower, and it would still be suicide to use it mid-fight, but the sound of the change masked Louis' complaints and pleas.

Wait.

She was just—

She was just running away again, wasn't she? Doing the exact same thing that had lost her Grace.

The realization struck her like lightning, and she found herself suddenly hyperaware of every tendon, every bone, every skin cell in her body. Lehmhart stood there at the ready, his engines brimming with energy and warping the air below them with heat that made both Louis and Cecilia sweat and made the flowers below lie flat against the earth.

Cecilia exhaled. "Never mind, I'm staying." Lehmhart thrummed in relief as well.

"Thank the Legendaries." Louis held out his hand, but lowered it. "I never wanted to chase you away. I was just... you know. Just don't say hurtful things, even if I know you don't mean it." She found herself hugging Louis tightly, continuously apologizing in his ear as her eyes welled up with tears. He struggled to return it, but he did eventually. "You're trying to pretend you're doing fine, but you aren't."

"I'm trying to move on," she said, head still on his shoulder. "But I can't."

"It hasn't been very long."

"That's what Emilia says—wait, what was that about her acting odd?" She ended the hug and held her friend at arm's length.

"I don't know. It's like she's a lot less energetic than usual lately when talking, or at least that's what Pauline noticed the last time they were together a few days ago—actually, they should be together right now in Hearthome. It's unlike her. Do you know something about it?"

Louis had been so focused on work that he'd rarely lifted up his head to see what was happening around him. While he knew what was generally happening, he had no idea Emilia had decided to stick to Cecilia to watch her or that she most likely had unrequited feelings for whatever reason. The Unovan figured that being with her while she was with Temperance wasn't very fun, but if she was acting this way even with Pauline...

"I do know," Cecilia said.

Maybe it was time to speak to Emilia and tell her that she shouldn't be involved anymore.

It'd hurt her, but... they needed to talk more seriously. And if push came to shove, if no accord could be reached;

To protect her feelings in the long term, maybe Emilia was better off no longer being friends with her.

"Louis, I think I might need to leave after all."