“Roll your shoulder, please.”

I moved my right shoulder around in its socket, and was shocked to only feel a general soreness.

“....Wow. I can hardly feel any pain from that Mightyena bite.”

The doctor smiled at my reaction.

“Good. It means the medicine is working. Try not to put too much pressure on your shoulder for the next week, freshly regrown bones need time to properly solidify.”

I blinked.

Regrown bones?

“In the meantime, continue eating that energy bar we gave you, and I’ll write you up a prescription for some medication to help with the soreness,” the doctor said. “Since you elected to have the scar removed, you shouldn’t experience any other pains. Come back if you do.”

I nodded in acknowledgement.

After the final battle against Team Magma, the clinic I had been taken to had hurriedly performed a quick surgery on my arm after knocking me unconscious. I was back to consciousness within an hour and ready to leave, but they actually asked me an interesting question first.

Did I want to keep the scar?

I had plenty of time to think about it, as they had me take the time to eat to help with my blood loss, but in the end, I declined the option of keeping a memory of today’s battle on my body forever. While having a scar would have looked rad as heck, I didn’t like the possible interpretation that one of my Pokémon gave it to me. Plus, scars occasionally caused phantom pains and I didn’t want to deal with that, even though the medicine of this world would significantly reduce it.

The doctor gave my injury one last check over, then left the room to grab a brace for my shoulder, and to write up the prescription.

I sat in silence for a few minutes, slowly finishing off the energy bar, and when the door opened again, I was surprised to see it wasn’t the doctor. Entering the room was an unassuming woman with tan skin, short, dark hair, and a pair of black glasses. She was dressed in a simple outfit consisting of a gray top and shorts, and due to that, I didn’t immediately recognize her as Phoebe, the Ghost Type specialist of the Elite Four.

As she entered the room, the air around my feet suddenly became ice cold and my shadow extended out past its normal limits. It coiled around Phoebe’s body, and moved up to be right at her shoulder. Phoebe smiled at Banette’s reaction, and when it poked its head out, she began to pet it.

“Aww, it’s nice to see you again, too. ...Wait. Why have you gained so much weight?”

She turned to glare at me.

“Are you overfeeding my Pokémon?” she accused.

I raised up my hands defensively.

“I didn’t know Ghosts could gain weight,” I replied.

She huffed and spent a few more moments rubbing Banette affectionately as she walked over to the chair the doctor was just sitting in. When she sat down, Banette sunk back down into the darkness and my shadow retracted to be solely under my feet.

“You know it’s pretty obvious that you’re Steven’s ‘mysterious informant,’ right?” she asked.

I froze.

“It wasn’t intentional on your part, but you’ve been pretty obvious in your movements,” Phoebe said. “No one else was seen in Fortree this morning and Mossdeep this afternoon. Plus, your voice wasn’t disguised at all during that video call earlier. I listened to a recording of it before I met with you, and hearing you talk in person basically confirms it for me.”

“That’s flimsy and circumstantial evidence at best,” I said all too quickly. “There’s nothing you have that confirms I’m the one giving Steven information about... things.”

Phoebe raised an eyebrow.

“Okay. Then I guess I should have Banette stop protecting you?”

“...Uh, I still need him?”

She laughed.

“It’s okay, you’re okay, Alex. I didn’t come here to threaten you. Steven’s going to be unconscious for a while, so I felt I should step in to fill you in on what’s happening since you did help with Rayquaza. I’m also going to tell him to stop meeting with you, at least for a while, because honestly, wow Steven’s bad at hiding stuff.”

I frowned at that.

So then if she figured it out, are people going to be able to tell that I was the one giving information to Steven? Or did she only figure it out because she works closely with him?

Seeing my frown, Phoebe sat up a bit straighter and looked embarrassed.

“Oh shoot, I didn’t mean Steven’s putting you at risk. I work with Ghosts, so I make sure things that are supposed to be secret stay secret. That’s kind of our whole thing, making sure things stay at rest, y’know? As far as I could tell, no one else has put the pieces together yet, but they’re there. Banette likes you well enough, so I’ll make sure to tweak your file a bit after this to help- Oh, don’t look at me like that. Everyone in the League has a file.”

My frown deepened. I knew Phoebe was trying to make me feel better, but there was something about her cheerful attitude in the face of such a serious topic that was making me feel worse.

“So what is it that you’re here to tell me?” I asked. “Or did you just come here to warn me?”

She rubbed the back of her head.

“No, uh, here’s the thing. I’m not usually the one talking to trainers like this, that’s generally Steven and Sidney’s jobs. But since they’re both otherwise occupied... Do you have any questions? I think I can tell you more than usual since you already know a bunch... I think...”

Phoebe awkwardly shifted around in her seat and I took a moment to collect my thoughts, trying to figure out what I wanted to know.

“What’s going to happen to Courtney?” I ended up asking. “I want to make sure there isn’t a chance she’ll still go after me.”

“She’ll be too busy with therapy, and you know, being in jail,” Phoebe said. “Probably a lifetime of community service whenever she’s deemed small enough of a threat to leave the complex in Ever Grande, too. We’re still trying to find some missing people after Kyogre’s attacks, but my Ghosts and Tate and Lisa’s Psychics can help with that. Her list of crimes are massive, especially since anything one of her hired thugs did is her responsibility, as their crimes happened under her orders.”

“And the punishment for her crime of controlling a Legendary Pokémon?”

Phoebe frowned.

“She won’t be able to train or battle with any of her Pokémon for the rest of her life, and won’t even have access to her team members for the next few years at least. It’s usually cruel to the Pokémon to separate them from their trainer, but when you have several Pokémon that spent most of their lives partnered with a criminal, sometimes the Pokémon need rehabilitation too. If she’s ever judged to be in a better state, there’s a chance they might be able to visit each other, but otherwise she’ll just be a normal citizen from here on out. Well, a normal citizen as much as a jailed criminal can be.

“In addition, the Draconid tribe will probably demand some form of punishment as well, but they haven’t contacted us yet. We’ll know what they decide to do once their Lorekeeper messages us through the usual channels.”

I nodded, satisfied that Courtney was being handled properly. Even though she caused so much damage, I couldn’t help but to feel a bit bad that she was being separated from her Pokémon. I wouldn’t know what I would do if my team was ever forcibly taken away.

However, she did have her Pokémon attack me and had her Mightyena bite my shoulder so hard they had to regrow my bones. I felt bad about the idea of the punishment, but at the same time, my empathy for Courtney was extremely limited.

“One thing I’m still stuck on is why you waited so long to get Maxie to stop her,” I asked. “Courtney was clearly obsessed with him, and he could have told her to stop a long time ago. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t really under duress, either, and probably would have worked with you to do that.”

Phoebe grimaced.

“We, uh, kind of thought it would make things worse? Maxie has always been iffy in his behavior. He’s been receptive to debates with people against his ideas as a form of therapy, and was slowly coming around to understanding the goal of Team Magma is inherently flawed. He hadn’t been that convinced until recently, and we were worried if we tried to get him to stop her earlier, Courtney might have responded differently to what happened today and worked to free him even harder. We had intended to use him to try to get her to stand down in TV Mauville, but since Wattson had access to Mega Evolution, we relied on him instead.”

Huh. I wonder if Maxie would have escaped then, and reformed Team Magma in the future.

"So then, with Team Magma effectively gone, what now?" I asked. I didn't really have any other questions, and Phoebe was starting to look a bit uncomfortable with how much she was sharing. She hummed in thought for a few moments, then finally spoke up.

“Well, this will probably be the end of any of their criminal activities for now. There’ll always be mimics and people who think their goals are right, but the core of their organization is removed, and everyone else can be easily handled.

“As for the immediate actions, Mossdeep was heavily damaged and needs to be repaired. We’re going to try to limit how much information about what happened here today gets out, to try to continue to protect your identity. As a heads up, people might recognize you since you did beat Courtney in front of a big crowd, but as long as no news station reports on that, no bad actors should go after you.”

That was a relief. Despite my usual paranoia about these things, I hadn’t even considered that some people would want to take revenge against me for contributing to Team Magma’s downfall. I had been more worried about getting the eye of one of the other numerous criminal organizations out there, but I appreciated the protections being put in place for this one.

“Other than that, everything else should be handled,” Phoebe continued. “I’ll work with Steven for him to be more subtle with his interactions with you, and we'll send the bounty for Courtney over to you tonight. Once I have everything with your identity properly hidden, I can get you a teleport to Fortree by the end of the week."

I blinked.

"I'm sorry, go back a bit. The bounty on Courtney? How much was that?" I asked.

"Dunno. About two million?"

My jaw dropped. Phoebe laughed.

"I better go make sure everything is going well with my Ghosts,” she said while barely holding back her laughter. “Good luck with your last badge!"

Phoebe left the room, leaving me in stunned silence.

I was still in shock when the doctor returned with the brace and the prescription, and soon after, I left the clinic to meet back up with Wally back outside in Mossdeep.

Wally and I got rooms in a mostly intact Pokémon Center, and planned to stay in the city for a bit until we got our teleport out.

There was a concerted effort to repair Mossdeep the days after Team Magma’s attack. The city had suffered greatly under the heavy downpour of rain, and even though Glacia had her Ice Types freeze incoming waves, some still managed to get through and damage the buildings.

Water had to be pumped out, buildings had to be repaired, and plants had to be regrown. However, with Pokémon, the reconstruction efforts went insanely fast. Water Types could control the water to make it leave, Fire and Flying Types could quickly dry off areas, and Fighting and Psychic Types helped quickly repair buildings and remove rubble. As for the plants, most Grass Types excelled at fast growth, although larger plants like trees would still take years to fully recover.

The primary force behind the repairs was not trainer Pokémon, but rather civilian Pokémon. While trainer Pokémon excelled at using their moves to help out, civilian Pokémon had been specifically trained for menial labor and excelled at it. They could build houses, smooth roads, plant trees, and even just rearrange furniture much more quickly than Pokémon who had only battle experience. In my mind, I considered trainer Pokémon as the generalists for these tasks, and civilian Pokémon as the specialists.

One thing I noticed about the civilian Pokémon helping out was that some civilians didn’t follow the normal carry limit. Some individuals had more than six Pokémon with them at once, and there was even a moving company that employed twenty-four individual Machoke. I ended up checking the laws online that night, and found that the carry limit didn’t apply to civilians, as long as the Pokémon weren’t trained to battle.

As much as I wanted to help with the recovery process, once all of the water had been cleared from the streets, there wasn’t much my team and I could do. Mossdeep was actually restored to a working state within a day and a half thanks to the help of Pokémon. There were still small things to be fixed, and a few houses were scheduled to be demolished, but everyone wanted to put the attack behind them, and Wally and I spent our time training and challenging trainers.

The only complication were the rumors being spread around.

When I fought off Courtney, I had done it in front of a large crowd, which meant a few people recognized me and my team. Since I had fought alongside the Gym Trainers, most people attributed the defense against Team Magma to the Gym itself. However, there were a handful of people who saw my familiar outfit, and went up to thank me for beating Courtney.

While I tried my best to be polite about it, I felt uncomfortable being thanked as I didn’t beat Courtney. I appreciated my team’s efforts being recognized, as they spent a long time to gain their current strength, but in all honesty, my team and I didn’t win. We only held her off, and her Weezing fainted from Explosion rather than from my Pokémon’s attacks. Her Camerupt was still conscious in the end, and I didn’t even see her Mightyena after Banette engaged it. Phoebe saved the day by bringing in her army of Ghosts and Maxie, otherwise Courtney would have been able to pull off a Mega Evolution to sweep me and the Gym Trainers.

Although, how did Phoebe have so many Ghosts with her? Did they count against her carry limit, or was she able to get away with that by having them hide in her shadow?

While most people didn’t recognize me from my hair or face, they did recognize me from my outfit. When I asked one person what stuck out about my outfit to them, they specifically mentioned the pink and purple colors, and the “horrid combination of boots and shorts.”

Despite receiving such a rude comment, I didn’t pay it much mind. My clothes were chosen back when I had almost no money to my name, and once I got to Kalos I would be able to massively improve what I wore while also keeping the same theme. It was practically mandatory to do that, too, as the region I wanted to go to after Kalos was especially cold.

By the end of the fourth day of our stay in Mossdeep, most people had almost completely moved on and hardly anyone recognized me, most likely due to Phoebe’s influence. Occasionally, I heard complaints about Steven, mostly blaming him for the attack and being upset with him for not showing up, but that was due to the public not being aware of Steven’s fight against Rayquaza. Wally and I were told to keep that secret, because if people found out that the League had the potential to call in a Legendary Pokémon to deal with local threats, there would be a political shitstorm (even if Rayquaza only involved itself with Kyogre and Groudon).

There wasn’t much else to do, so I focused on taking it easy and continuing to lightly train my team. We needed to get the practice in as our eighth and final Gym Battle was coming up soon.

Ponyta was growing up. At this point, it was early January which meant he was just under three months old. Pokémon matured at an insanely fast rate, so even though he was considered ready to battle back when he was only a month and a half old, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around having such a young Pokémon fight.

In my time in Mossdeep, I made sure to spend a lot of time with him training his mind with puzzles and other problem solving activities. He tended to not visibly express his emotions, with the sole exception of his eyes literally glimmering when he was happy or excited. Ponyta was a passive observer; he liked to sit back and simply watch things go on around him. He still enjoyed participating in games and battles, however, but he did have a preference.

As much as I was hesitant for him to battle, it was best practice and healthier for him to exercise through the occasional battle while he was young. Within Mossdeep, most trainers willing to fight were trainers who were still taking on the Gym Challenge. They were either pushing for eight badges, were taking it extremely slowly and still just doing trials. The weakest team of Pokémon a trainer had was a three-star team, which was much stronger than Ponyta was. However, five days after Kyogre’s attack on the city, I was finally able to find the perfect opponent for Ponyta.

The trainer I found was a local who had left for his journey but returned to make sure his family was okay after Kyogre’s attack. They were fine, and since he already earned all eight badges, he decided to spend the rest of the time before the Ever Grande Conference training in Mossdeep. He was like me in that he had received an egg in the past as thanks for helping out the Pokémon League, and had a young Pokémon that needed battle experience as well: Dwebble.

As Ponyta was a Psychic Type, Dwebble had a Type advantage as a Bug Type. Additionally, Bugs tended to mature much faster than other species, and while Ponyta was twice Dwebble’s age, the two Pokémon had about the same level of maturity. As a result, it would be a roughly even fight, though Ponyta had slightly more battle experience.

The trainer and I found an empty field behind a local Pokémon Center, and we sent our Pokémon out. Ponyta appeared on my side of the field, while Dwebble appeared on his. Wally wasn’t around since he was training on his own, but Florges was out to help with healing after the battle, and the other trainer had a Girafarig out that could heal with Wish as well.

The battle started with both of us calling out commands for our Pokémon.

"Confusion, Ponyta!"

"Dwebble, Smack Down!”

On the field, Ponyta ran to try to circle around the rock crab Pokémon, keeping his distance with his developing Run Away. He focused on Confusion as Dwebble desperately tried to scuttle towards him, but when Dwebble realized it was completely outsped, it lifted up a claw and swiped down. A chunk of rock formed on its tip and was flicked at Ponyta. It caught Ponyta in the legs, causing him to trip, and he skidded along the floor as a result of taking Dwebble’s Smack Down.

Despite his new scrapes and bruises, Ponyta was still able to focus on and compete his Psychic Type attack while prone, conjuring a blue light that surrounded Dwebble. Ponyta’s Confusion attack twisted the space around it and caused Dwebble lock up briefly from the damage.

“Come on Dwebble, interrupt it with a Sand Attack!” the other trainer called out.

Ponyta kept his eyes trained on the Bug Type as he stood back up, but Dwebble dug his claws into the ground and flicked them forwards, sending a cloud of dirt and sand toward Ponyta. The particles went into his opened eyes, causing him to reflexively close them and interrupting his focus for Confusion. Dwebble proceeded to scuttle towards Ponyta, but Ponyta’s practice sensing things with his mind let him detect Dwebble’s movement and he still managed to easily ran away.

“Knock it back down with another Smack Down!” the trainer shouted.

“Don’t let it do that! Fairy Wind instead!” I shouted as well.

Dwebble lifted up a claw and formed a chunk of stone at the end of it, while Ponyta whipped his head to the side, briefly causing his mane to glow and sending out a breeze of Fairy Wind. Ponyta’s attack came out much faster than Dwebble’s Smack Down, and the stone went wide.

Following up that exchange, Ponyta whipped his head back the other way and a second Fairy Wind was sent towards the bug. He proceeded to whip his head the other way again, and a third Fairy Wind was sent towards his opponent. Ponyta kept the process up as Dwebble suffered against the barrage of painful, sparkling wind, only managing to clip Ponyta on his side with a single Smack Down. Soon, the bug was forced to use Withdraw to enter its shell in an attempt to protect itself from the constant damage.

“Now’s your chance! Use Confusion again!” I called out.

Ponyta, with his eyes still closed due to Sand Attack, lifted up the Dwebble in its shell with Confusion and slammed it against the ground. The other trainer realized Dwebble didn’t have a good way to respond and winced.

“I forfeit. This is getting a little much for Dwebble.”

Ponyta stopped his attack and gracefully set Dwebble back on the ground, who exited its shell and wobbled in place, disoriented. The other trainer’s Girafarig walked over to heal Dwebble with Wish, and Florges floated next to Ponyta to do the same, complimenting his performance in the process.

I should have remembered how quickly Florges can use Fairy Wind when I was comparing Ponyta to her. I had thought Ponyta’s Fairy Wind was slow, but she was just ridiculously fast. Ponyta is exceptionally quick to use it for his level.

I walked over to shake my opponent's hand, but we didn’t give each other any money. This was a friendly match, and we didn’t bet on it. He gave some advice to me about Ponyta, mostly saying we should work on how quickly he can stand back up, and I told him that he should consider teaching Dwebble Spikes, since that move might make it harder for its opponents to run away.

Dwebble and Ponyta each got a few more matches in the next few days, but not too many. Neither I nor Dwebble’s trainer wanted to rush things, so each time it was just a quick match. Ponyta got the taste of his first loss as well, when Dwebble managed to trip Ponyta and successfully close in with a Fury Cutter attack. In the future, I planned for Ponyta to get more dedicated training in Kalos when I wasn’t focusing on training for a Gym Battle or Conference. For now, he had an acceptable pace for such a young Pokémon.

Steven messaged me in the morning at the end of the week. Or, I got a note delivered to me by an unassuming Ace Trainer. My guess was that Phoebe talked to him about being more subtle if he wanted to make sure I didn’t get any more extra attention. The note basically said I’d receive a “thank you gift” after my eighth badge, and that I’d get transportation back to Fortree at noon. I had already talked to Wally about what his plans were, and he told me he planned to return to Fortree with me so he could fly back to Mossdeep on Flygon, fulfilling the promise he made to do so.

Wally and I went to the location specified on the note, and an exceedingly familiar Claydol suddenly appeared in the alley we were told to enter. It would have been extremely suspicious to meet in an alley if it wasn’t clearly an attempt on Steven’s part to hide his actions better.

We placed our hands against Claydol, and found ourselves in a similar alley between a large tree and a building in Fortree. Claydol quickly disappeared, and following the street signs, Wally and I walked towards one of the public parks.

We traveled in silence, Wally walking with too much focus to say anything right now. He had a hardened look in his eye, and determination was practically radiating off of him. When we arrived, the park was mostly empty and still moist from the morning’s sprinklers. Wally proceeded to send out Flygon, who, after a stern look, bent down to let the saddle be put on its back.

Wally didn’t climb onto Flygon immediately, but turned around to speak to me.

“Well, I’ll see you in a month, Alex,” he said surprisingly awkwardly after how focused he had just been.

I smiled.

“Yeah, I have no doubts you’ll beat Tate and Liza this time.”

I turned to look at Flygon, where it was waiting for Wally.

“You better listen to him,” I said while pointing a finger aggressively towards it. “Don’t make me send Azumarill and Ninetales after you.”

Flygon looked conflicted about whether to be excited for a difficult battle, or to be afraid of being beaten up, but still acknowledged my threat. Wally put his hand on the side of Flygon, causing it to huff embarrassedly.

“Alex, I’m going to beat you, and I’m going to give you back your Dawn Stone,” Wally stated as if it were fact. “I haven’t forgotten our promise in Verdanturf, and I’ll show you that it wasn’t a mistake to help me become a trainer!”

I shook my head.

“It was never a mistake to help you, Wally. Although you beating me? I’d like to see you try.”

We locked eyes for a moment before laughing. Soon, Flygon took off, the pair quickly disappearing past the canopy.

Wally was gone. I was alone on my journey once more, and with under a month of the season left, there was one last thing to do.

It was time to take on the eighth and final Hoenn Gym Battle.