Staring down at the egg, Cynthia could honestly say she had no idea why she’d felt so uneasy about it earlier. They’d avoided talking about it for over a week, and in hindsight, that felt a little silly. Understandable, maybe, but still silly. In the end it wasn’t that big of a deal.

  She glanced up, meeting Myst’s questioning eyes.

  Of course, she wasn’t going to lie. In the end her feelings shifting on the matter probably came down to the simple fact that she didn’t have to take care of it. After all, the problem had never been the egg itself. It was the way they’d gotten it. Taking it from the dying Zoroark, even if it was to take care of it, it had felt… wrong.

  Like something a Hunter would do.

  Myst’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Okay, so aside from, y’know, loving it and all that jazz, do you have any tips? Like, how to hatch it at all? I’m guessing my brilliant theory of ‘walk around with it’ isn’t actually correct, right?”

  Cynthia blinked, caught off guard. She stared at him for a moment, her train of thought fully derailing. Then, realizing what he’d just said, she carefully neutralized her expression.

  “No? Walking with it would work.”

  Myst blinked. “What?”

  Cynthia looked back down at the egg. “Pokémon eggs hatch by absorbing Aura and the right Type Energy from their surroundings. Humans don’t have a lot of spare Aura, but what we do have becomes more active when we exercise. So walking with it would help. You’d just have to keep it as close to your body as possible to minimize Aura loss. Not a big deal, just strap it against your stomach with a sling or something.”

  Myst’s eyes widened, darting between her and the egg. “Wait. Are you telling me I need to walk around with this thing fastened to my stomach?”

  Cynthia nodded solemnly. “Yes. Don’t worry. Walking around with a big stomach before welcoming a new family member? Totally normal.”

  Myst stared at her blankly for a few seconds, slightly pale, clearly imagining himself waddling around with a giant round egg strapped to his gut. His eyes drifted slowly back to her face, and then narrowed.

  Cynthia quickly tried to school her expression again.

  Myst leaned in, dropping his voice into something ancient and dramatic. “I sense mischief in your expression, young one. Do not trifle with me, you wouldn’t want to.” He took a step closer, “After all, I was there when the first eggs were forged.”

  Then he dropped the act and grinned. “Seriously though, walking. Yay or nay?”

  Cynthia broke into giggles, fully aware she was only encouraging him. “Okay, okay,” she relented, smiling. “Yes, walking helps, just not by much. It maybe turns a year into ten months, if you’re lucky. Honestly, just letting it soak up energy from the environment might be just as fast. I can see how somebody would come up with the idea though, some of the most famous Pokémon walk around with their eggs after all.”

  “So, what? Is it that Pokémon are supposed to be the ones walking around with it…” he paused, grinning subtly as he glanced towards where his Pokémon were training, “Actually, does that mean I need have Rei hug it while she walks?”

  She grinned slightly at the look on his face, but still shook her head. “Maybe if she were a Dark-type. As it is…” She pursed her lips. “Best option would be an incubator, but a decent portable one costs as much as a car. Without one… it depends how close the egg is to hatching, and that isn’t always easy to—”

  She cut herself off, as an idea suddenly formed. Then, before Myst could ask, she snapped towards Riolu.

  The Aura Pokémon was crouched nearby, staring at his right paw as it glowed with an icy blue sheen. Type Energy pulsed irregularly from it—bright, then dim, then bright again. After a few seconds, his eyes sharpened, and the glow crystallized into a brilliant, steady light that crawled up to his shoulder.

  With zero hesitation, he yanked the paw back—

  And slammed it into a nearby boulder.

  The stone didn’t crack. Didn’t even shift.

  Instead, in the blink of an eye, a layer of ice burst across its entire surface, flash-freezing it into a flawless sculpture.

  Cynthia let her eyes linger on Riolu as she considered her idea… and then her brain registered what Riolu had just done.

  She sighed softly, moving her gaze to the fully frozen boulder.

  While it certainly looked impressive, in the end that wasn’t actually a properly executed Ice Punch. In reality, the result said more about Riolu’s lack of control than anything else. A proper Ice Punch wouldn’t just freeze the surface; it would explode the rock into shards, each one coated in a thin layer of frost.

  This?

  This was just pure Type Energy bleeding outward, destabilizing under its own weight, Riolu unable to shape it into a clean strike…

  Of course, she couldn’t really blame him. She was the one who’d told him to start incorporating more Ice-type energy into the attack, and that extra energy was exactly what had led to his current predicament.

  Back when they had first met, she had once told Myst that Riolu had mastered Ice Punch, but that hadn’t been exactly true. He could use it, yes, but it had been a move trained specifically for the Eterna Gym. It didn’t have to be perfect, just strong enough. Ice was super effective against Grass-types, after all. Even running at seventy percent, it had done the job.

  But now? When it might be Riolu’s main method of attack? Against types it wasn’t strong against?

  Seventy percent wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

  Which meant going back to fundamentals. Training control, learning to condense type energy while still using the maximum the move allowed, and, ultimately, punching rocks until he stopped creating flash freeze sculptures instead of breaking them.

  Not that they seemed to be making much progress there.

  Cynthia shook her head, then forced her thoughts back to why she originally had turned towards him.

  “Riolu, can you come over here?”

  Riolu paused. The glow around his paw scattered, energy fading. He turned and padded over at her call.

  She smiled, gesturing toward the egg. “Can you sense how much Aura is stored in the shell? Feel how much it’s holding?”

  Riolu didn’t question the request, never the type to disobey her for even a second. He simply nodded and turned to the egg, his eyes already glowing as he stepped closer.

  Myst leaned in, watching intently. “So… I guess he can check how close it is to hatching?”

  Cynthia nodded. “That’s the theory. Not that we’ve ever tested it, but it makes sense. After all, when an egg is new, most of its Aura is concentrated in the shell—it’s what makes them almost impossible to damage. But as the Pokémon inside grows and begins absorbing energy, it gradually pulls Aura from the shell. So…”

  She turned to look at Myst, and froze slightly. He was leaning just over her shoulder, gaze fixed on Riolu, his face unguarded and close. When he turned and caught her staring, he smiled softly, and something warm settled in her chest.

  “…So if the shell’s low on Aura,” he said, “Riolu would know it’s almost time for it to hatch, right?”

  Cynthia just looked at him for a moment, cheeks warming.

  Honestly, there was something different about him lately.

  She couldn’t put her finger on it, but even before their talk yesterday, it felt like something had shifted. Like some invisible wall had cracked.

  On her side.

  …and on his.

  “You—” She began.

  “Riolu?”

  What?

  Cynthia snapped her attention back to Riolu, just in time to see him step forward and gently place one paw on the egg’s shell. He crouched, peering at it with narrowed eyes, head tilted slightly.

  She opened her mouth to ask, but Myst beat her to it, a single eyebrow raised.

  “What? Is something wrong?”

  Riolu turned toward him. “Riolu Riolu, Ri?”

  You said Zoroark was Dark-type, right?

  Myst blinked, brows furrowing. “Yeah…?”

  Riolu glanced back at the egg, and Myst followed him. Riolu’s eyes burned a bright blue, and for a second he didn’t say anything. Then the Aura Pokemon turned back, slowly opening his mouth—

  Myst eyes widened before Riolu could get a single word out. “Wait, wait. Are you saying it’s not a Dark-type?”

  Riolu blinked, looking almost surprised, before he collected himself in an instant and gave a solemn nod.

  “Riolu, Riolu.”

  It’s not.

  Cynthia frowned, “So the egg isn’t actually a part of the Zoroark line then? I guess there was always the possibility, considering Zoroark had to have its own Egg Group, but I didn’t actually consi—"

  Myst cut her off, voice a little too fast. “Is it a Ghost-type? Or, no, is it a Ghost and Normal-type?”

  Riolu paused again, seeming to double-check the feeling in his Aura. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  “Riolu.”

  Probably.

  Cynthia let her mouth slowly close as she let her eyes glide over to Myst. The egg not being a Zoroark, in some ways it could be a good thing. That would mean less scrutiny at least, as it probably wouldn’t be a completely unknown Pokemon. But, well… Normal and Ghost?

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  She racked her brain, tried to summon up any Pokémon with that typing, but came up blank. Normal-types was probably the second most common typing, but paired with Ghost? She didn’t think she actually knew of any.

  …Then again, why did she even bother trying to figure it out?

  She turned to Myst, ready to ask, only to stop when she saw his face.

  His face had shifted. Brows furrowed, lips parted like he was halfway through a thought. Before she could speak though, he gave her a stupid smile.

  “Okay, don’t get mad, alright?”

  She blinked.

  Mad?

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Why would I get mad?”

  Myst turned back to the egg, smile faltering slightly. “Okay, I know I, one hundred percent, should’ve mentioned it earlier, but there’s another version of Zoroark. One that’s Ghost and Normal-type.”

  She stared at him for a beat, waiting for more. When he didn’t elaborate, she raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh no,” she deadpanned. “Anything but that. We go from one rare and unknown Pokémon to another rare and unknown Pokémon. The horror. The tragedy. Truly, how could we possibly survive?”

  Myst kept his gaze on the egg, not responding to her sarcasm. Instead, his voice slowly softened into something quieter.

  “They’re kind of a… regional variant,” he continued. “Legend says they came from Unova, but left because too many people were afraid of them. So they packed up and went searching for a place where they’d be accepted.”

  He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not that it worked. Wasn’t even close. They ended up somewhere worse. Harsher terrain. People even more unfriendly. Wild Pokémon that didn’t care how clever illusions were.”

  He crouched down, placing a hand on the egg. “And so they started dying. Falling one by one, until only a few survivors remained. And the ones that lived?” he shrugged, “Well, they weren’t exactly hopeful anymore. They got bitter. Then hateful. And when even they died, that bitterness, that hatred, it stuck around. Aura clinging to corpses, never quite fading.”

  Myst’s fingers brushed over the egg’s shell, gently.

  “Eventually, their lingering emotion became something else.”

  Cynthia didn’t speak, just watched his hand move.

  “…They turned into Ghost-types,” she said softly, finishing the thought for him.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Honestly, I kinda made some of that up, but it fits, right? You told me ghost-types are born either from strong Aura or through eggs. I didn’t think about it at the time, but we put this egg next to Zoroark. After everything she went through… maybe it was enough.”

  Cynthia looked down at the egg again, that old pit in her stomach starting to stir.

  “…Yeah,” she murmured. “It might’ve been.”

  They both fell silent. For a few seconds nobody said anything. But then, as Myst started to rise, she opened her mouth.

  “…You really thought I’d be mad at you?”

  Myst paused, then looked up, surprised. “What?”

  She kept her gaze on the egg. “You said not to get mad. Like you thought I’d blame you. But this wasn’t your fault. We made the decision together to place the egg next to Zoroark.”

  Myst blinked.

  She clenched her fist. “And seriously, what, you think I’d freak out because its a Ghost-type now instead of a Dark-type? Like that makes it worse somehow?” She shook her head, voice rising. “Why would you even say something like—”

  “Cynthia,” Myst cut in.

  “Don’t Cynthia me,” she snapped, stepping closer. “You’re the one who said you were going to stop blaming yourself. And the second something even might be your fault, it’s right back to business as usual.”

  Myst stared, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Okay, I realize that came out wrong. I didn’t regret placing the egg next to Zoroark, that wasn’t even close to what I meant. Me saying ‘don’t get mad’ was just—” He paused, fumbling for words, then just groaned instead. “Ugh. Fuck.”

  Cynthia crossed her arms. “Was just what?”

  He slowly shrugged sheepish. “It was just a stupid joke.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Okay, in hindsight, a really stupid joke.”

  He gave her another shrug.

  “Seriously. I mean, the point was never really supposed to be about how the regional variant got formed, but instead that I didn’t tell you about the fact the variant existed at all. But when I started talking I just gave you the full rundown, and so suddenly I was dumping a horror story on you.” He paused, “Which, yeah, sorry about that.”

  Cynthia let her expression go flat. “Myst. Zoroark died like a week ago. We’re carrying her egg. It’s a story about how spite turned a Dark-type into a Ghost-type. Of course it got dark.”

  Myst raised a finger, like he wanted to argue a point, then caught her glare and dropped it.

  “…Yeah, that’s fair.”

  She looked away again, jaw tight.

  Seriously, what was his problem? Did he think that him just saying it was a joke gone wrong would make her feel better?

  … Okay, knowing it was just a bad joke did make her feel a little better. Myst being stupid was nothing new. Saying dumb things without thinking? Yeah, he did that. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to punt his face a little right now.

  Honestly. Boys.

  She turned back, voice steady again. “Whatever. Just don’t joke about that stuff. Kael. Zoroark. It’s not funny. It’s still not. It won’t ever be.”

  Myst nodded quickly. “Yeah. Got it. Sorry.”

  The tension lingered for a second, then began to fade. And just as the silence began to stretch, a voice piped up behind them.

  “Riolu Riolu?”

  Can I continue training?

  Cynthia turned to see Riolu looking back at her with mild impatience. She nodded before as she opened her mouth, but before she could get a single word out Riolu had turned on his heels, and wandered back toward the clearing without waiting another second.

  Myst let out a low laugh from behind, and she snapped her head back to him, glaring.

  He held up his hands in surrender, a small smile tugging at his lips.

  At the sight of it her glare faltered, and against her better judgment, she felt her own lips twitch. Still, before she let herself fully lose the fight, she shook her head and turned back to the egg.

  “Honestly, I’m guessing there’s some twist to your story that makes you think I’d get mad, right? And like… that would be—what? The region they ended up in?”

  Myst crouched beside the egg again, grinning. “Pretty much. You’ve been grilling me about Hisui for weeks, and I kept swearing up and down I didn’t know anything. Then now I thought about it for, like, two seconds and—boom. Turns out the Zoroark fled to Hisui, got a dramatic backstory, and picked up a whole-ass new typing like it was a DLC.”

  He gave her a smug little shrug. “Honestly? Saying ‘don’t get mad’ as a lead-in, I am pretty sure that was needed.”

  Cynthia rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t—”

  She paused.

  Then she turned sharply toward him, eyes narrowing. “Wait. What do you mean, Hisui?”

  Myst’s eyes glittered. “I mean the most common name for a Ghost and Normal-type Zoroark is Hisuian Zoroark.”

  “…What.”

  “And, more than that, once I remembered the stuff about Zoroark, I kinda started thinking about all the other Pokémon with so-called Hisuian forms—which, considering you didn’t know about Zoroark, you probably haven’t heard of them either.”

  Cynthia stared at him. Then felt a single eye twitch.

  “What.”

  …

  As they set up camp for the second, and hopefully last, time inside Mount Coronet before reaching the halfway house, Johanna had only one thought rolling through her mind.

  Gods they were adorable.

  Johanna looked at the two idiots she’d decided to follow for now and couldn’t help but grin. Something about the way Cynthia relentlessly grilled Myst while he desperately pretended he wasn’t enjoying the attention—ugh. Chef’s kiss.

  “Honestly,” Myst was saying, rubbing the back of his neck, “I don’t know much more, Cynthia. When I try to think about Pokémon I can directly connect to Hisui, that’s about it. Twelve Pokémon, more or less, that’s how many I can list off as Hisuian variants. There might be more, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head... Still, you are seriously telling me that you haven’t heard of any of them?” He asked, sounding almost like he couldn’t believe it. “I mean, before I started naming them, I really thought you’d recognize at least a couple. Honestly, what are the odds none of them exist anymore?”

  Cynthia crossed her arms. “First of all, they could still be around. We might just not know where to find them. We did just discover the Underground, right? Some could still be living down there.”

  She paused, frowning, then gestured.

  “But even if they’re gone... I guess the reason you know them as Hisuian variants could simply be because they went extinct during that period. I mean, honestly, the real question is why there aren’t any records. The Shirona clan has archives stretching back hundreds of years. If those Pokémon existed in Sinnoh, we should have something. I mean, sure, Hisuian Zoroark is one thing. It’s rare even now. But not knowing about a Hisuian Growlithe?”

  She let out an almost delirious laugh. “That should be impossible. Growlithe is one of the first Pokémon humans ever domesticated. It loves people. If there was another variant of it, there’s no way we wouldn’t have records.”

  Myst tilted his head. “What if you actually have records of Hisuian Growlithe? Because, like, yeah, I’m calling the Fire-and-Rock one ‘Hisuian Growlithe,’ but that’s my name for it. Back then, wouldn’t the people of Hisui just call it Growlithe? Or even something completely different?”

  Cynthia’s eyes lit up like someone had just handed her a thesis. “That’s a great point! We see ‘Growlithe’ in old records and assume it’s the Kantonian form, but what if it was really referencing the Hisuian one? Any oddities in the descriptions, people would just write them off.”

  Myst shrugged. “I mean, that doesn’t really explain why a whole species would just be forgott—”

  Johanna shook her head, amused, as Cynthia launched into a rapid-fire explanation about clan wars, generational knowledge gaps, and the collapse of centralized recordkeeping after the first destruction of Jubilife—an event that had left a major hole in the historical record from that period.

  Honestly, they were like two characters straight out of one of those Journey novels that just wouldn’t stop getting published. A sharp-tongued prodigy meets a mysterious boy, gets dragged into weird adventure, and slowly, inevitably, falls in love.

  A smile crept across Johanna’s face as she watched them, and she quickly tried to smother it.

  She should’ve been too old to still be into those kinds of stories. They were for kids, Cynthia’s age, or even younger… Then again, she did need something to do while waiting for her turn during contests. And honestly? She couldn’t care less what anyone thought about her hobbies. She loved those stories.

  Beside her, Midna let out a faint sniff and stared ahead with dark-eyed disdain.

  Johanna glanced down at the Umbreon.

  Seeing Midna out of her ball while they were walking was rare. She usually only came out for food or moonlight. But here in Mt. Coronet, with no sun to irritate her, she’d agreed to tag along far more often. It was a welcome change, and one of the reasons she had always liked this part of the journey.

  “What do you think, Midna?” Johanna whispered. “They look cute together, right?”

  Midna’s slow blink and unimpressed stare said more than a million words ever could.

  The Dark-type could not care less.

  Johanna just shrugged.

  She looked back up just in time to see Navi tug insistently on Myst’s pant leg, trying to get his attention. He didn’t even glance down. His entire focus was still on Cynthia, watching her with a soft, easy smile as she spun theory after theory about vanished Pokémon species.

  He didn’t interrupt. Just let her run with it, nodding occasionally like the most important part wasn’t the words, but the fact that she was the one saying them. Of course, he was listening, Johanna could tell from the questions he asked now and then. But even so… on some level, it felt like he just wanted Cynthia to keep going.

  She squinted slightly and folded her arms.

  She’d encouraged Cynthia to think more about her feelings, gods knew she needed the push, but she was still a little unsure about Myst. They were adorable together, sure. That wasn’t the issue.

  It was just… now that she’d spent more time with them, time when they both weren’t running on trauma fumes, she had better perspective. And she got the sense that before she joined them, Cynthia had been all Myst had.

  And that wasn’t healthy.

  She wouldn’t call it obsession, she knew obsession when she saw it, but there was something there.

  Maybe it was the way Myst, ever since she’d first met him, seemed to hold himself back. Content to stay quiet, to not make a single overt move, even when Johanna was pretty sure every other teenage boy would’ve at least tried something.

  It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested in girls either. She wasn’t blind.

  Johanna shifted her gaze toward Myst—then followed it, straight to Cynthia’s chest, and a split second later, back up to her face.

  Yeah. He definitely wasn’t confused about what he liked.

  Or who he liked for that matter.

  A grin tugged at her lips. She glanced down at her own chest, then back at Cynthia’s.

  She didn’t want to brag or anything, but she had met a lot of guys, and very few didn’t at least try to flirt with her, especially at his age. Myst hadn’t, not once and that was honestly enough proof.

  Myst liked Cynthia, had since before she met either of them.

  And yet he was waiting.

  She couldn’t quite put her finger on why that felt strange, maybe it was the way he’d handed Cynthia the steering wheel entirely. Like he knew she needed time to figure herself out, and so he didn’t want to do anything that might rock the boat.

  Or maybe he just knew he needed time to figure himself out.

  …Either way, the way he went about things didn’t feel like obsession. Not even close.

  Johanna tilted her head, brow furrowing. But before she could continue her absolutely flawless psychoanalysis, Midna slammed into her shin with a deliberately hard bump.

  “Ow! Rude!” she hissed, glaring down at her partner.

  Midna rolled her eyes at her.

  “Umbreon um.”

  Your analyzing isn’t helping.

  Johanna sighed and gave up with a wry smile. “Fine, fine. Kill the fun, why don’t you.”

  Midna gave a smug flick of her tail and padded away, utterly victorious.

  Johanna stuck out her tongue behind her back, then brushed a stray hair behind her ear, just as Navi finally gave up on trying to get Myst’s attention. The Kirlia let out a tiny, offended huff and collapsed in on herself, arms crossed in perfect mimicry of one of her trainer’s most frustrated expressions.

  Johanna smiled slightly, got up and strolled over to her.

  Navi looked up with wide, stormy eyes, clearly exasperated. Johanna gave her a sweet, too-innocent smile.

  If Midna wanted her to stop psychoanalyzing, fine. But she still needed something fun to do. After all, there were still a day to go until they reached the halfway house, and any kind of real rest.

  “How do you feel about Contests?” she asked, conspiratorially.

  Navi looked up at her, looking slightly interested.

  Johanna grinned wolfishly.