Chương 121: Chapter 103

"I came to a decision last night, and I think it's the only way I'm ever going to move past this. I think it would be best if I traveled alone for a while," Louis said with a pained look. I inhaled sharply as I felt my heart drop.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I just said," he sighed.

"I… something is wrong with me, and I need to be away for a while."

"So you weren't fine," Pauline said.

"Come on, after all this time, we're finally reunited and you're just leaving?"

"I have to do this. Don't try to convince me otherwise, my mind is already made up," he said.

"So what now, then? Are you still going to Hearthome at least?" Pauline asked.

"I plan on doing that. I will still be participating in the Circuit, I just need to spend some time… reflecting."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Justin asked worriedly.

"It'll be dangerous in Mount Coronet without Cece, Denzel, and Grace's experience. Plus, your Gible..." Louis offered his friend a thin smile.

"Thank you, Justin, but I'll stay safe, truly. I appreciate the offer."

"Louis…" I hesitated.

"Do… can we fix this somehow? You can't just leave. You're—""It's not up to you to fix this," he interrupted.

"It's up to me. You've done nothing wrong, Grace. Something must be up with me because none of these… feelings make any sense."

"That's okay, feelings don't make sense most of the time," Denzel said, clapping his shoulder.

"You stay safe out there, man."

"I will."

"Wait!" I yelled.

"Is there really nothing? I— I feel like we can work this out, if we just talk."

"Don't worry, Grace," Louis replied, shaking his head.

"I've gone over the options a thousand times in my head. If I were to keep going, I'd grow to be insufferable. Jealousy is a vice I'd like to avoid."

"Damn it," I whispered to myself. I needed to rack my brain for solutions now. It was as I feared. Louis felt hurt by Cece and me dating, but I had never expected for him to just leave to try to get over her. It was all so sudden. Maybe we could put the relationship on hold for now? No… No, I could never do that. What about cutting down on PDA until we got rooms for ourselves at the outpost and in Hearthome? I… I didn't think that Louis would be convinced by that.

"Well, since we're going in the same direction, I'll wait here for a few hours while you make it through the cycling road so we don't accidentally meet," Louis stated.

"That would be awkward for all of us." How was he so nonchalant about this?

"Louis." All of our heads turned toward Cecilia.

"I'm sorry." Our friend gave her a pained smile and chuckled.

"Don't apologize for any of this. It's not you or Grace. It's me."

"Make sure to contact us," she said.

"And come back, you hear me?"

"I will, it's a promise." There was nothing I could think of in such a short amount of time to salvage the situation. Louis handed us his part of the huge tent they all carried and Denzel put it in his bag, although it was a tight fit. After that, we each grabbed a bike and left. Louis was gone. Just like that. —— One hour into the Cycling Road, we pedaled past the first rest stop.

Cycling through the entire road would take an average of six hours, and each hour, there was a rest stop in case trainers wanted to eat, drink something, or, well… rest. The Cycling Road was organized in lanes, exactly like a normal road, where trainers could come and go using the different sides, although the vast majority of them were going in our direction.

The only people that were on their way to Eterna were either trainers from Sinnoh's eastern side, past Mount Coronet who were on their way to challenge Gardenia, or trainers that had gotten defeated in battle and that desperately needed to get back to a Pokemon Center. Needless to say, battling on the road wasn't allowed to stop people from damaging it, but the latter had especially increased with the price increase in potions that was showing no signs of slowing down.

All those dejected stares made me feel bad, especially since my friends were rich, so if push came to shove, we'd share potions like we did in Eterna Forest, but my mind was preoccupied with Louis' sudden decision.

"You feeling alright?" Denzel asked as he slowed down and pedaled next to me.

"No."

"Well, I knew that, but I just wanted to start the conversation somehow— ah, I'm not helping, am I?" he sighed.

"Sorry."

"It's okay, I just keep thinking back. What could I have done differently? Maybe I could have… we could have delayed revealing our relationship until we were in Mount Coronet."

"Come on, that would have been a terrible idea, and you know it. Louis might have made a mistake, or staying with you might have hurt him irreplaceably. You did it the best way you could have." I tried to fight him, but I knew deep down that he was right. I wasn't thinking straight.

"Yeah… yeah, I guess. I still feel like garbage."

"Well, let's try to cheer you up," he smiled before nodding to our right.

"Look at Pauline." I turned my head and couldn't help but at least smile at her. She was struggling to even pedal straight, and Cecilia and Justin were flanking her to try to stop her from falling, which she had already done once. Thankfully, she wasn't wounded, and her pants stopped her from scraping her knee.

"This is— this is discriminatory!" Pauline yelled.

"What about the trainers who can't ride bikes!"

"There are walkable paths on both edges of the road," Justin said.

"Shut it! Nobody asked you!"

"You basically just did…" Cece said. I chortled and turned back toward my best friend, who was doing the same. I could tell, however, that there was a certain pain behind everyone's laugh. They almost felt forced. As if they were trying to distract themselves from what had happened only an hour earlier. Cecilia had asked me how I was doing more than twenty times already, but I was more worried about her. I wanted to speak to her, but not while she was having some iota of fun. I'd do it tonight.

"I knew she couldn't ride a bike," I smiled.

"Well, she can, just barely. She kind of reminds me of those bikes for little kids with two little wheels attached to the back one." I gasped.

"That's so right! That's why she can't keep her bike straight!"

"I can hear you, jackasses!" She yelled.

"That was the point," I said. Arceus, this all felt so fake. Plastic. I tightened my hand around my bike's handles and felt my jaw clench.

"Not working, huh?" Denzel said.

"It was nice for a bit, but no," I replied.

"You went to talk to him last night. Did you talk about anything? What did he tell you?" He raised his eyebrows slightly.

"I had to ask for a while to get into his room. People were staring at me like I was crazy," he said.

"But he did let me in after a while. It's simple, Grace, he's heartbroken."

"I… I thought so," I exhaled.

"I don't exactly understand, but it was the only thing that made sense. What did he say?"

"That's… I can't tell you. He told me in confidence, and I'd be betraying his trust," Denzel said.

"Fine. I just wished I could have been there to listen. Maybe I would have found a solution."

"You can't predict everything, Grace," Denzel said.

"Sometimes, you've just got to let the chips fall where they may and adapt. Pick the best path forward."

"I just can't understand that," I shook my head.

"That's an anxiety-inducing way to live. I'd never be able to do it."

"Eh, you learn to care about the things only you can affect after a while," he said as we passed a slower trainer.

"You taught me that."

"I did?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

"Obviously. All those pep talks you gave me weren't for nothing," Denzel smiled.

"But that was only for Pokemon training!"

"Well, congratulations, you played yourself, I now live by those words vicariously," he chuckled.

"It's like my whole life philosophy. I just like to think that things will work themselves out somehow."

"I sure hope so," I said.

"Doesn't hurt to be optimistic."

"It hurts twice as bad when you're wrong," I countered.

"Okay, but it makes you lead a much happier life, so I'll take my chances," he shrugged.

"Grace, are you alright?" Cece asked, surprising me so much I almost jumped.

"Did I scare you? Sorry."

"It's okay, I'm just feeling jumpy," I said.

"But yeah, I'm okay, although I could be doing way better. I think it'll just get some time to let the fact that Louis is gone sink in."

"He'll come back," Cecilia said, clearly sure of herself.

"He promised."

"See? It'll work itself out," Denzel smiled.

"Guys, how long until the next rest stop?" Pauline huffed.

"I'm dying over here." —— Stolen story; please report. Going through the entire Cycling Road ended up taking ten hours due to how many rest stops Pauline asked for. I almost expected to see Louis pedal across us due to how much longer it had taken than it should have, but he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he ended up passing us while we were on a break. Either way, I couldn't keep worrying about this. Louis would be fine.

If he wanted to travel alone, I would begrudgingly accept his choice, even though I still wished it could have been different. Not everything could go my way all the time. It was easy to sit there and think that if I was in his position, I would have done something different. I was almost certain I would have stayed. I had traveled with them while still thinking that Cecilia had been genuinely dating Louis for a bit, but everyone was wired differently.

And who was to say I wouldn't have gone crazy eventually and left? Imagining Cece with someone else now… that made me sick to my stomach. Louis was suffering, but only he could move past this. I would believe him and meet him back with a smile whenever he decided to come back. There was another gate at the end of the road that was identical to the previous one, and we handed our bikes back before leaving. I stretched my legs and turned to Denzel.

"How much longer are we traveling today?"

"Probably until we can see Oreburgh with the naked eye," he answered.

"Should be a few more hours."

"Oh, right, I almost forgot we were getting close to the city again," Pauline panted.

"That bike ride tired me out."

"Well, this is still the easy leg of the journey. It'll take a week to get to the outpost at Mount Coronet's entrance," Denzel said.

"And you want to catch your Rufflet there, right?"

"Yes, obviously. If I don't, I can still try to find one after we pass through the mountain."

"Well, let's get going then," Justin said.

"We should make good ground today." I turned back toward the Cycling Road and noticed that it had been built over an older segment of route 207.

"Intrigued?" Denzel asked.

"Trainers are still allowed there, and it leads to a cave system. There are rumors that you can find wild Gible there, if you look hard enough."

"Okay, you lost me at cave system," I said.

"Plus, it'd waste too much time."

"It's nowhere as dangerous as Mount Coronet, but yeah, let's not start randomly wandering into caves. That seems like a recipe for disaster."

"With our luck, something would collapse the ground under us, and we'd get trapped again," Cecilia said sarcastically.

"Let's go." —— It felt good to be traveling with so many trainers on the road again. Route 216 and 217 had been far too quiet for my liking. Something about route 207 being filled with so many trainers filled me with a grand feeling I couldn't explain. Maybe I just enjoyed seeing my fellow co-workers after so long. Cece smiled as she watched Fletchinder fly overhead while Sylveon stood on Denzel's shoulder.

Growlithe and Gothorita, who I hadn't seen in a long time, walked alongside Justin and Pauline while Togetic lazily floated with her head on mine. Of course, there was also another reason for this giddy feeling. I approached a pair of trainers that were traveling together.

"Hey," I waved to the two trainers.

"How many badges do you guys have?"

"We both have zero," The boy answered.

"Why?"

"Way to embarrass us, dude!" The girl said.

"Don't you know who that is?"

"No— wait, fuck! Grace Pastel?! Shit, that's her group back there," he gulped, nodding toward my friends.

"Calm down," I smiled. When I didn't have to deal with a crowd, I could handle my fame rather well, although it still felt weird to just be recognized in the wild.

"I wanted to ask you for a battle with my Larvitar."

"Won't you just roll any of us over?" The girl asked.

"No, she's never battled before, and she's still young," I said.

"It won't be as one-sided as you're thinking, and I'll even give you a potion to heal your Pokemon afterward. How does a one-on-one sound?"

"Okay, you're definitely on!" She said.

"Sammy, film me!"

"What? Why are you battling her and not me?"

"Because you owe me after begging to try Gardenia over and over again. Oh, you were on the brink of a breakthrough, weren't you? Just one more time, and you were totally going to beat her! Now we have no chance of making it to the Conference because of you!" Samuel's wince worsened the longer she went on, and by the end, he already had his Poketch out of his pocket.

"What, you think Fantina would have been any different?! She's literally famous for being impossible for new trainers to beat, and there's no way I'm going through fucking Eterna Forest to get to Roark and Byron. The first year's always experimental anyway, Sheena," he grumbled.

"At least now that we know we won't make it, we get to travel through every town and try every gym once to get some experience."

"Shut your mouth and film, Samuel," Sheena hissed.

"And your hands better not shake all over the place. We're posting this online when we can, win or lose." They certainly were… something. We made some space, and we both grabbed our Pokeballs.

"Go, Koffing!" She yelled, releasing the small poison type. It looked on with a blank stare and kept itself afloat by releasing the gases in its body. With a smile, I released Larvitar.

"Sweetheart, listen up. This is a battle. Your first battle. Let's give it our best." Larvitar stared back at me with wonder and then nodded.

"Tar!" Time slowed as I stared at my opponent. She looked nervous, but she was hiding it behind a veneer of excitement. No, she was excited. She was battling someone famous. The terrain was rocky, which was perfect for Larvitar, but Koffing being able to levitate meant that we only had Rock Throw to work with, unless we were going to knock it on the ground somehow. From what I knew, Koffing's defenses were excellent, so that was unlikely to happen, especially since Larvitar was still so young.

What she did have, however, was control. My perception of time returned to normal, and a strategy clicked into place.

"Rock Throw, hit it from above," I said.

"Smokescreen!" she yelled. Koffing coughed and hackled a few times, releasing thick smoke from its mouth to hide from Larvitar. I frowned. Why try to dodge when she could have countered with an attack? Was this a trap of some kind? Larvitar shook her hands, ripping a large rock from the ground and lifting them upward.

"Lift a few from under him," I quickly added. More rocks burst from the floor and through the smoke, clearing it enough for Larvitar to get Koffing within her sights. She yelled and sent the one she still carried on top of Koffing, knocking him toward the ground.

"Crap! Get back up!" Sheena yelled.

"Again," I said. Every time Koffing tried to float back, Larvitar would hit it with another Rock Throw from above. This was strange. Why keep trying to float up when the best move was to attack? Spraying Larvitar with a poison type move would shift us to the defensive and allow Koffing to float back up.

"Horn Attack," I ordered.

"Keep it down." Larvitar clumsily ran toward Koffing, keeping it grounded, and lowered her head right before reaching the poison type. She wasn't powerful enough to run him through— which was good. I didn't want to force her Pokemon back to the Center if I could avoid it.

"Smog!" My opponent yelled. Finally, I thought. No way to protect Larvitar from gases with an attack, but maybe… Koffing released a poisonous, purple gas. Larvitar couched, clearly in pain, but she had held on long enough.

"Payback." With an evil glint in her eyes, the rock type slammed her entire body into Koffing, who flew off toward its trainer. It fell to the ground unconscious shortly after. Togetic clapped happily, congratulating her sister, who puffed up her chest proudly. Her friend Samuel burst out laughing and stopped his recording.

"You fucking suck, Sheena! Serves you right!"

"It's Grace fucking Pastel, what do you want me to do?!" She hissed, recalling her Pokemon. I called Larvitar to me and praised her. Her Rock Throws left nothing to be desired, and her Payback had been incredible as well. Horn Attack could use some work, but she would lose the move when she evolved, so I preferred to focus on the other two moves. Plus, I was going to start teaching her new ones soon.

"Good battle," I told Sheena, handing her a potion. She reached to give me money, but I refused.

"It's fine, you were honestly doing me a favor, and things are getting expensive, right? Keep it."

"T—thank you," she said.

"Um, how— how was I?" I let out a pensive hum, thinking back to our short battle.

"Your Pokemon's good enough to get your first badge, but you need to work on thinking quickly. When something doesn't work, switch it up. Instead of asking Koffing to get back up, you should have made him attack me right away before we got anywhere close enough to hit you with Payback. If you had done that, you could have regained the initiative and won."

"Grace, are you done? We're leaving!" Pauline yelled.

"Yeah, coming!" I said.

"Good luck to you guys," I said. So what exactly did Larvitar lack? The power issue would be solved with her getting stronger with age and training. I had no doubt that by the time we were in Hearthome, she'd be as powerful as Tangela was now physically, or maybe stronger. I sprayed her with a potion, recalled her, and opened my Pokedex.

"Nice one," Denzel said.

"I bet you made their day."

"Maybe," I said.

"Would you believe it if I said that I almost overthought so much that I thought she had been trapping me?"

"Because it felt too easy?" Cece asked.

"I'd believe that."

"No need to brag," Pauline said.

"Come on Pauline, you've already admitted that they've gotten really good. You were on the edge of your seat during their battles with Candice—""That was a secret, Justin! I just want to catch up, alright? I'm going to battle as many trainers as possible!"

"You do that," Denzel said.

"What's with the tone?"

"What? That's my 'happy for you' tone." I ignored their shenanigans and thought back to Larvitar. Rock Throw had been good enough to knock Koffing out of the sky, but that was because the poison type was slow. If I ever sent her out against other flying types, which was a type she would need to counter in the future, then she would need to learn Smack Down.

Rock Slide could work— it was basically Rock Throw, but improved in every single way, including the quantity of rocks, but Smack Down was easier to learn, so I figured it would work well as a bridge between the two moves. I also wanted to teach Larvitar Stomping Tantrum, which would serve as a good base to hit multiple foes at once if we ever needed it, and the ground type would certainly help cover a few weaknesses in my team. Plus, something about sweetheart stomping the ground all angrily sounded really cute.

——"Woah," I said, in awe of the view ahead of me.

"That's beautiful." In front of us, Oreburgh stood in all of its glory. The heavily industrialized mining town that supplied Sinnoh with most of its coal and other minerals was chugging along. It was funny to see it after so long, especially when it was so close. If I had a Pokemon with Rock Climb or that could carry me, I could have made it there before the evening even ended, but without them, it would take months to make it back. And all because the Cycling Road wasn't completed.

"Let's stop here," Denzel said.

"Wait, you actually meant right here?" Pauline asked incredulously.

"This is a famous spot. Other trainers will stop by and harass you for an autograph or whatever."

"I agree with Pauline, which is a rare occurrence," I nodded.

"Let's get a bit further and get near the edge of the route."

"The city would have been so beautiful at night," Cece sighed.

"But alright." Finally, after another hour of walking, we set up our tent, and with my legs feeling like lead, I sat down inside while Pauline was tasked with starting a fire outside with her Charmeleon with Justin and Cece. Denzel, meanwhile, had gone off on his own to try to fix his team's relationship issue. Seeing this huge tent after so long reminded me of the time I had to sleep separately from the rest of the group because of my nightmares. They were surprisingly almost gone now.

I still had them once in a while, but most of the time, I slept peacefully, which was doing wonders for my mental health. I had been stabbed by Mars in my sleep enough for a lifetime.

"Grace," I heard Cece say as she entered the tent.

"You wanted to talk to me."

"Yeah. You know why already," I said with a thin smile.

"Louis, of course," she nodded.

"Over the course of the day, I changed my mind a lot," I started.

"I started by thinking that we had made a mistake and that we could have somehow prevented him from leaving. But then the more I think about it, the more I think that a confrontation was inevitable."

"I think so too," she said.

"I wasn't going to delay telling him about us for any reason, and you already knew I thought he wouldn't take it well. I just didn't think that—""That he would leave," I completed her sentence.

"But he did. He said it wasn't our fault, and that he was the one that needed to fix his own issues, so I'm going to take him at his word and believe that he'll succeed." Cecilia sat and leaned against me.

"I know he will. He's strong. He gave up the most out of any of us when he came to save me in Mount Coronet. Louis loved his father, you know? I never loved mine, but he genuinely loved his, and now Harvey's shown himself to be a monster. I think I underestimated how much of a toll everything was taking on him. He's changed since we left." I nodded.

"He's serious all the time."

"Yes, but it goes deeper than that. There were cracks forming below the surface. I think that if he had stayed, there would have been a massive fight, and he knew. He loves us too much to subject us to that."

"He's grown a lot, hasn't he?" I sighed.

"We all have," Cecilia replied as she turned toward me. Right. We were alone. I leaned in and— I jumped when I heard someone clear their throat.

"Sorry to interrupt?" It was Justin, who was leaning into the tent and waiting to enter.

"Justin. What is it?" Cece asked.

"So I was interrupting. My apologies, but Denzel is gone, and you two are way better at battling than Pauline is— don't tell her I said that, she's still angry at me for that gift," he shuddered.

"My head has been swirling with these thoughts since our phone call after your gym battles with Candice— no, since my battle with Gardenia, even."

"These thoughts?" I asked.

"Using stalling as a strategy," he declared.

"I think I want to figure out how to do it."