I. Summer

[chouxcreme]

Alder had kicked him off Victory Road with nothing more than a smile and a vague, "Live life, young man!"

"I was going to leave anyway without you telling me," Cheren had grumbled.

He lied.

If Alder hadn't said a thing, Cheren was sure he'd still be standing there, gazing up at the looming walls of the Pokémon League. Teetering on the edge of possibility, but never entering.

Even though he had said all those grand things to Black, epiphanies about true strength, the determination to change his path...

Old dreams died hard.

Cheren closed his eyes and chanted "live life" to himself until the words rang meaninglessly in his ears.

How was he supposed to 'live life', anyway?

-

"105 degrees," he read out loud in disbelief, sticking close to the air vent near the gate attendant's booth. He grimaced as he shook out the back of his shirt, the material drenched with sweat and sticking to his skin. The weather report continued to slide across the electric bulletin board—Nuvema: Sunny 95°F - Route 1: Sunny 95°F - Accumula: Sunny 98°F.

"It hasn't been this hot in years," the attendant next to him said. "Must be that—what do you kids call it? Climate change?" Cheren watched enviously as the attendant unscrewed a bottle of water, took a big gulp, and let out an audible sigh of satisfaction. "And where are you headed?"

The attendant gestured to Cheren's bag—huge, bulky, and stuffed with potions and items and his own jacket peeking out of a poor zip job. "You can't be thinking about backpacking in this heat wave."

"I was planning on flying," he said, his hand brushing against Unfezant's poké ball at his belt. Though at this point, surfing down the entire coast of Unova sounded better than flying any closer to the sun. "But I'll probably take the subway."

"You'll have to hike to get to Opelucid Station."

I know, Cheren wanted to say. Instead he sighed.

He sure picked a hell of a time to go adventuring.

-

His first stop was home.

It was eerie how unchanging Nuvema was, when only months before the upper half of Unova faced a society-ending calamity. The sleepy peacefulness blanketing the small town was jarring—almost as if he had stepped into a pocket of the world where time crawled at its own, slower pace.

His house was the same. His parents still kind, still laidback.

"It sounds fun," his mother said over dinner. "You should go and play."

"I'm not 'playing', I'm going to start over as a trainer—"

"Sure," she said. "Here, have more meat. You look thin."

Professor Juniper had the same smiling, dismissive attitude as his family.

"Don't work too hard, you hear?"

He furrowed his brow, and she patted his shoulder.

"Sometimes the answers we need the most come from the unlikeliest of places." She gave a thumbs up. Cheren stared at her, not entirely sure what she was getting at. "Well, don't think too much about it. Just go and do wherever you like."

Bianca's father was stiff from his speech to his movements, as per usual. They sat in a drawn out silence on a couch, while Bianca's mother hummed and made tea in the kitchen.

"Bianca's not here right now," he finally said. "She's at CasU taking a summer course."

Cheren nodded. "She called a while back, saying she was thinking about it."

Bianca's father grunted and his hands ran over the material of his pants, imaginary sweat clinging onto his palms in the stilted atmosphere. "Well. Say hi to her if you go there."

"Of course."

The only thing strange was Black's mother.

While she gave much of the same speech everyone else had given him, she paused for a moment at the end, asking, "Have you heard from Black?"

"Black?" Cheren tilted his head ever so slightly, as if it would rattle his memory. "I called him a couple weeks ago." When she remained silent for a beat too long, he continued, "He seemed to be doing alright. Said he was around Undella, something about ruins."

If he was being honest, Cheren hadn't bothered to prod too deeply into Black's matters. A twinge of guilt tugged at his conscience.

"I see." Her face broke out into a delayed smile. "Thank you. Well, I shouldn't be keeping you. Stay safe and enjoy yourself!"

He nodded.

"And remember to call your parents every now and then."

-

Training with wild pokémon was proving to be utterly useless.

The wild grass was shriveling underneath the intensity of the sun. It was also absolutely empty. Cheren could lie down in it and burn into ashes before a poor unsuspecting Patrat wandered out from the cool, shady depths of the local forest.

His Liepard slapped his leg with the flat of its tail, panting and glaring.

"Sorry," he said, "it's hot isn't it. You can go back." He took out a poké ball from his belt. "I'll keep searching, so—"

Before Cheren could click it open, Liepard smacked the poké ball out of his hand and growled in annoyance.

He pursed his lips. It was too hot to yell.

"What was that for?"

It jabbed its head in the direction of a sign. Whatever trainer tip had been written on it was covered by a poster of a picturesque beach.

Visit Undella — A Town of Rippling Waves!

"No."

If pokémon could talk, Cheren was sure his Liepard would've called him an idiot.

-

He managed to hold out till Striaton, after which he gave up on walking entirely.

In his haze, Cheren didn't remember how he had managed to get to the nearest station, properly pay for his ticket, or even board a train, but the moment the doors closed behind him he knew he had messed up somewhere.

The car was completely empty save for one—a girl around his age who, despite plenty of empty seats, stood in the very middle while holding onto a grab handle.

Cheren pushed his glasses up and squinted to make sure this wasn't some sort of vision-induced illusion. The girl was still there, and she was smiling brightly at him.

"You ready?"

"...What?"

"Wow, you look like you're about to pass out any second. You sure you're up for this?"

"Huh?"

"Do you need to sit down? You can for a bit. We still have a while to the next station."

Cheren stared blankly at her.

"Excuse me," he said, slowly, "but what are you talking about?"

She stared incredulously back.

"Aren't we battling?"

"Battling?"

"This is the Battle Subway," she said. "You know that, right?"

-

As the seconds passed and the train began to move, Cheren felt ridiculous standing up, clinging onto a bar for support. With a sigh, he dropped himself into the nearest seat.

"I forfeit."

The girl blinked.

"What?" She looked lost. "But...we have to battle? That's the whole point?"

"You're not a robot. You don't have to do anything."

In his mind, he imagined his Liepard snorting at him. Cheren shoved the mentally conjured pokémon aside.

"Are you sure you don't just wanna fight? I mean, we might as well since we're here—"

"Definitely not."

The girl frowned until her entire face seemed to droop.

"Okay," she said, dragging out the vowels in disappointment.

Cheren sighed in relief when she began walking to seat herself—

—until she sat down right next to him.

She stuck out a hand. He eyed it warily.

"If we're going to be here for a while," she said, "we might as well get to know each other."

"I'd...rather not."

"Come ooon. Don't be a stranger."

They were strangers though.

Cheren pursed his lips. It was as if Alder had suddenly appeared before him, forceful and draining and overly familiar.

When he did grab her hand, her grip was uncomfortably firm, but he got the feeling that her strength was less out of proving dominance and more from a lack of self-awareness.

"There we go. Nice to meet you." Her smile widened. "I'm White."

-

The next fifteen minutes were the longest fifteen minutes of his life.

White was from Nimbasa, a self-proclaimed Battle Subway veteran and nerd, and knew more about the local Trubbish populations than he would have ever liked to know.

"Listen," he said, cutting her off after her third brag about being better than the Subway Masters, "if you're so good, why don't you do something else besides the Battle Subway?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you take on the League?"

She cocked her head to one side. "I never thought about it."

"Seriously?" Cheren raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you limiting yourself by doing the same thing all the time?"

"Ingo and Emmet do it every day though."

"That's their job."

White frowned. "Then, did you fight the League?"

"I did."

"All eight?"

"All eight."

"Wow," she said, "you're a real big shot, aren't you?"

Cheren somehow found it more irritating that she sounded genuine instead of sarcastic.

"Hey, hey, does that mean you fought the Elite Four?"

He wondered if he could pretend he didn't hear her when White was practically shouting in his ear, leaning towards him with glittering eyes.

And just as quickly, she leaned away, looking uncharacteristically serious. "Oh, but I guess that means you lost. Otherwise you'd be Champion and all that, right?"

Cheren dug his nails into his thighs.

"But you look pretty strong," White said, not seeming to notice his silence. She winked at him. "If you ever change your mind, I'll always be down for a battle."

-

He had figured Pinwheel Forest would be easy enough, and it was. Even with type disadvantages, Serperior had come out the clear winner of each encounter.

But as he sat on a moss-covered log in the quiet of the forest, the only thought that ran through Cheren's head was how many moves he could've cut down on. How many clumsy steps and wasted motions. How many lengthy setups and hasty attacks.

His Serperior wasn't the problem. It had done just fine, dodging and counterattacking even without his commands. Cheren was the problem.

He had forgotten how to battle.

It was laughable. In trying to find a new kind of strength, he had fallen into an entirely different trap. The fear of repeating the same mistakes. The fear of slipping into the same mindless pursuit of strength as before. And in the dark caves of Victory Road, defeat after defeat after defeat, it was all too easy to lose sight of himself and forget.

Cheren inhaled slow and deep, but there was no relief in the stifling humidity and the crowding trees.

Despite the weather, he called out Unfezant and mumbled a promise of treats when it sluggishly turned its head to glare. It ruffled its feathers, sighed, and crouched down so Cheren could climb on.

Being alone with his own thoughts in this weather must be driving him crazy. So he'd go get some company.

-

Castelia in the summer was a nightmare to navigate.

The amount of tourists seemed to increase every year, and the sheer amount of bodies from morning to night did nothing to lessen the heat. But whatever inconvenience they brought in, they made up for in energy. Even in the evening, the air thrummed with conversation and laughter and shouts. The sky was beginning to darken, but the lights lining the streets and climbing the walls of skyscrapers gave the impression of prolonging the daylight.

"Cheren! Cheren, I got them!"

Bianca's voice was barely audible above the crowd. She frantically lifted both her arms as others jostled into her, standing tip toe to keep the box of Casteliacones in her hands safe.

"I told you I don't need—"

"Can't hear you!"

Cheren frowned and pushed up his glasses, but still weaved his way through the crowd to lift the box from her hands. Bianca smiled wide in victory.

"I got the last dozen just in time!"

"Honestly—"

"Oh, just give it to your pokémon you big grump." Bianca turned him around and lightly shoved his back. "Come on, let's go to my dorm. Everyone's body heat is going to melt them if we eat here."

She skipped ahead before he could say anything else, and he followed in silence. For a moment, they turned into a dark, secluded alley, and Cheren thought of the scary movies that he, Bianca, and Black used to watch in the summer. Bianca and Black never seemed to mind even at a young age—they laughed every time Cheren quietly hid behind a pillow, sometimes offering one to him ahead of time.

Just as quickly as they entered, they stepped back out into a busy street, and only then did he realize Bianca had slowed to walk beside him in the darkness. She hummed a random tune—something she came up with on the spot, judging from the discordant notes—and when she met his eyes, she gave a small, cheeky smile.

"That place looks sketchy, but everyone there is nice. There's a cute little cafe there too."

He sighed. "I didn't ask."

She continued humming as if she hadn't heard him. They didn't enter any more alleys after.

-

They never asked "how are you."

Instead they watched TV, argued over the accuracy of Waving Weaving Walk, and laughed over the National Gymquirer. Cheren fed Casteliacones to his pokémon and gave Unfezant a thorough head scratch. They let out his Liepard and her Stoutland, both of whom had never gotten along, but in the small confines of Bianca's room were forced to settle their differences through narrowed eyes and indignant huffs.

Somehow, in the dim orange light from Bianca's lamp, the balmy breeze flowing in from an open window, and the ice cream wrappings cluttering the already cramped room, Cheren felt whatever had weighed down on him earlier fade into the distance.

They chatted even after the lights were off—Bianca in her bed, Cheren in his sleeping bag—the whirring of the ceiling fan filling the occasional silence and keeping them company.

"Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing?" Bianca suddenly asked after one of those lulls.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, we told each other all these things a while ago. 'I'm going to do this.' 'I know what to do now.' But." Bianca's blankets rustled as she shifted.

"But," she repeated, "aren't you scared?"

Cheren didn't realize he was holding his breath until the only sound he could hear was his own heartbeat, and the fan blades swimming above.

He licked his lips, but nothing would come out.

Bianca said, voice small, "Sometimes I wonder, 'what would Black do?'"

The fan continued to whir.

"Sorry. This is silly. Never mind." Bianca laughed. "Forget what I said."

Cheren never had many friends, but he did know Bianca well enough that he could picture the face she was making. Forced. Stiff. The kind of smile he'd glimpse post-battles. He was no stranger to losing, but he knew Bianca had always felt losses more—and in a well-practiced routine, she'd plaster on smiles like cheap bandages and run off.

"It's okay," he said.

She didn't say anything in return. Eventually Cheren fell asleep, nodding off to the ceiling fan and his own quiet breaths.

-

Route 4's entrance was blocked. WARNING! HEAT WAVE DO NOT ENTER, the bright orange sign said. Please take the subway to reach Nimbasa, it said in smaller font, followed by a picture of a Sewaddle drinking a water bottle.

For some reason, Cheren had a bad feeling about this. The feeling only worsened when he stepped out of a cramped, sweaty train and onto Gear Station.

"Whaaat! No way! It's you!"

He almost turned around, but he didn't know anyone in Nimbasa save for Elesa, and that was decidedly not Elesa's voice. No one else could possibly know him. He started walking at a brisk pace towards the exit.

"Hey! Wait up!"

He walked faster.

A hand snaked out of nowhere and grabbed his arm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wide, toothy grin and glinting eyes from under a cap.

To his disappointment, White had not forgotten about him in the slightest.

-

Cheren watched in horror as she purchased two Battle Subway tickets.

"How many times do I have to tell you I don't want to?"

"Zero," she said confidently. "I'm gonna make you fight no matter what."

"Would you just listen to me," he hissed.

"I did, last time. This time you have to listen to me."

"That's not how it works!"

"It does here. My home ground, my rules."

She smiled and fanned herself with bright red tickets, the word DOUBLES printed on the stubs.

"Ready, partner?"

-

White fought with reckless abandon. No holds barred, anything goes. The exact opposite of how Cheren preferred to fight. They were uncoordinated, constantly colliding into each other, nearly aiming attacks at each other, and through White's sheer brute force alone they had managed to win the first battle.

"That sucked."

"What did you expect? We didn't have any time to prepare."

"No, you idiot," she said. "You're the one overthinking things."

He sneered. "Who are you calling an idiot? I don't want to hear that from you—"

She marched up to him, her steps heavy and resounding even in the shaking of the train car, and without warning her arm stretched towards him. Cheren flinched.

But the only sensation he felt was his glasses sliding off his face.

"What are you doing? I can't see!"

"You don't have to. Don't focus on anything. Just follow my lead, okay? Back me up."

Their second battle was a dizzying nightmare. Cheren squinted the entire time, wishing he wore contacts instead, pressing himself into dirty windows to narrowly avoid White's Darmanitan's flare blitz, and getting shoved to the side by his Gigalith as it took the brunt of an incoming hit.

It was humiliating.

In the middle of their fourth battle, he found himself responding to White's voice. Unfezant flew when she called for Excadrill's earthquake. Gigalith set up stealth rocks while Garbodor's waves of poison chased their opponent wildly around the car. She laughed whenever she ran and dodged, and he scrambled to hide in a corner.

And they won.

White slapped him on the back, hooked an arm through his, and dragged his out-of-shape body into the next car.

-

Their fourteenth battle ended in failure. Cheren could chalk it up to type matchups, or he could blame it on his inexperience, but he was breathing hard, his muscles ached, and something on him smelled burnt. White sat down on the seat next to him, loudly complaining of how she should just cut her hair off as she retied her mussed hair. They watched the train roll away as the Battle Subway continued on its trek.

"Why didn't you do singles?"

"What?" White sounded tired and distant. She fanned herself with her cap.

"Didn't you want to fight me? Why did you team up with me instead?"

She shrugged. "I was just in the mood for doubles."

Cheren sank down his seat, feeling more tired than before, but not surprised.

"Also it's easier to get to know someone if you fight with them, not against them." White stretched out her fist. "You were good. Totally worth all your eight gym badges."

He snorted. "Of course." And he bumped his fist with hers.

After a moment, Cheren found himself speaking. "You should take them on too. You could probably do it."

"What, me?" White stared off into space. "Like all those other kids? Going on an entire gym tour of Unova?"

"It doesn't have to be the Unova, or the league. It just seems like a waste if you only stay down here." Suddenly feeling a wave of shyness hit, he added, "Like some underground troll."

White did punch him this time, and Cheren accepted it.

-

He gave in.

Simipour danced around him in circles as he dumped out expired potions and space-hogging poké balls from his bag. Liepard's tail swung smugly back and forth.

A quick trip to Shopping Mall Nine was all he needed. A cheap pair of trunks. A tube of sunscreen. Flip flops and towels. Seven sun hats were an unnecessary impulse buy, especially since they wouldn't even fit on most of his pokémon, but Haxorus had wanted one. Then Simipour. Then everyone else. So he packed them in too.

The last thing he bought was a train ticket to Undella.

-

"Six of you," Cheren said. "Six. And only one of you doesn't hate the beach."

He looked pointedly at Liepard, who remained the furthest away. It snarled at the ocean.

"This was your idea. You wanted to come here first."

Simipour bounced on its feet impatiently as it whined at the rest of its team.

"Fine. You all stay out here. The two of us are going." With that, Cheren reached down and picked up Simipour, who clung onto his neck in glee.

Five minutes later, his entire team followed after him. Liepard stretched out onto a towel, rolling lazily underneath the sun. Unfezant preened itself. Gigalith struggled to walk through sand, sinking heavily with each step, but diligently collected every seashell it found. Cheren sprinted after Serperior and Haxorus, who were tossing Simipour around like a ball as it screeched in delight.

When he dozed off, Cheren woke up to his body buried in sand, Liepard resting its top half on his face, and half his team being scolded by a lifeguard. His back was sunburnt, and he sported an obvious glasses tan.

He really should switch to contacts.

-

Alder sounded strange through a Xtransceiver—there was more age and less bravado in the tremor of his voice. His bright, cheery aura was subdued through the unsaturated colors of the screen.

"You look like you're having fun."

Cheren adjusted his glasses in a poor attempt to hide his tan. "I guess."

Alder laughed. "Still as shy as ever."

"Did you only call to make fun of me?"

"I certainly didn't call to have you be mean to me." Alder smiled. Cheren frowned. "But if you want me to get to the point, I will."

He paused, scratched his head, and with a tone reminiscent of asking the weather, asked,

"Have you ever thought about being a gym leader?"