Whiteout (Pokemon OC Insert)

[blue butterfly of death]

Disclaimer: This is the general disclaimer for the entire fic! I do not own any of the intellectual property depicted in this fanwork. Everything depicted is non-canon and entirely fan made.

Short A/N: Hello! This is my first fanfic I'm deciding to really polish and post for all of you to read, so if you have any criticism, or particularly strong emotions, please do let me know!! (whether good or bad) Please enjoy!! This is also the first post I've ever made on Questionable Questing, so please please please don't be afraid to let me know any of your thoughts!!!

Prologue: White

---

Empty.

That was the only word running through White's mind as he stared into the large yellow eyes that passed over him without even a second thought.

He was nothing to it.

Something insignificant.

The creature lumbered through the cavern like some horrible amalgamation of jagged spikes, frozen flesh, and shattered ice. Nothing about it looked right. One wing hung differently from the other. Its body seemed unfinished, its silhouette crooked and uneven in a way that made White's skin crawl.

Every time the beast exhaled, mist poured from between its jaws and spread across the cavern floor, leaving behind the same strange ice that coated nearly every surface around them, ice that refused to melt no matter how long they had held a flame to it earlier.

Each heavy step echoed through the cave.

Each stretch of its asymmetrical wings sent frost cascading from its body.

There was something monstrous about even the smallest movement.

White couldn't look away.

Those pale yellow eyes were empty.

Not angry.

Not hungry.

Not curious.

Just... empty.

Like there was nothing inside them at all.

No purpose. No excitement. No fear. Nothing that White understood as alive.

Even standing this close to it felt wrong. His limbs had grown strangely heavy, as though the cold itself were pressing down on him, urging him to sit, to close his eyes, to stop moving altogether.

"Kyurem."

His older brother barely breathed the name.

White turned toward him.

Bryce was terrified.

That scared White more than the creature did.

His brother was never scared.

Bryce climbed mountains during blizzards. He fought wild Pokémon twice his size. He laughed whenever their mother warned him that one day his recklessness would finally catch up to him.

But now his face had gone pale.

White shifted anxiously behind the outcropping of ice they had hidden behind.

Poro whimpered against his chest.

The little Cubchoo had been White's best friend ever since they met while exploring the outskirts of Icirrus City with Bryce. Normally, Poro loved the cold. He would throw himself face-first into fresh snow and complain whenever White tried bringing him inside.

Now he was trembling.

White wrapped both arms around him and tried to stop his own hands from shaking.

"What do we do, Big Bro?" he whispered.

Bryce looked at him.

For half a second, White expected the same grin he always wore when something went wrong. The one that meant Bryce had a plan.

It never came.

"J-Just stay here, okay, buddy?"

"Bryce..."

"I'll get us outta here."

Bryce stepped out from behind the ice.

Two Poké Balls were already in his hands.

White's stomach dropped.

"Wait..."

"Cryogonal! Vanillish!"

The cavern flashed white as both Pokémon emerged.

Kyurem stopped walking.

For the first time since entering the cavern, the creature turned its head toward them.

White suddenly wished it had kept ignoring them.

Kyurem's head tilted. For a moment, nothing happened.

"Cryogonal, Flash Cannon! Vanillish, Ice Beam!"

Both Pokémon attacked at once. A brilliant silver beam tore across the cavern, followed closely by a streak of freezing blue light. The attacks struck Kyurem directly in the chest, disappearing beneath an explosion of frost and shattered ice.

White flinched at the noise, but Bryce didn't move. His eyes remained fixed on the cloud.

"Did we get it?" White whispered.

Bryce said nothing.

The mist slowly cleared.

Kyurem stood exactly where it had before.

White's stomach twisted. There wasn't even a mark on it. The creature stared at the two Pokémon standing before it, almost as if it were trying to understand what they had done.

Then its jaws opened.

"Move!"

Bryce threw himself sideways as a blast of pale blue energy ripped through the cavern. White barely had time to cover Poro before the entire cave shook.

The beam struck where Bryce had been standing only a moment earlier. Thick pillars of jagged ice exploded from the stone floor, tearing chunks from the cavern walls as they rose. Cryogonal spun desperately through the air and narrowly avoided one of the spikes, while Vanillish was caught by the force of the attack and thrown backward.

"Vanillish!"

It slammed into the cavern wall with a sickening crack before dropping to the ground.

White's breath caught.

Poro squirmed in his arms, trying to turn toward the fallen Pokémon.

"Stay here," White whispered, tightening his grip.

Poro shook its head violently.

Another roar shook the cavern.

White looked back. Kyurem had spread its wings, and the temperature plummeted so quickly that his breath came out in thick white clouds. Frost crawled over the sleeves of his jacket, spreading across the fabric faster than he could brush it away.

Bryce pushed himself back to his feet.

"Cryogonal, get Vanillish!"

Cryogonal darted toward its fallen teammate.

Kyurem moved.

White had expected something that large to be slow. It wasn't.

One moment it stood several yards away. The next, one of its claws tore through the space Cryogonal had occupied only an instant before. Cryogonal twisted upward and barely escaped, but the edge of Kyurem's wing clipped its body and sent it spinning helplessly through the air.

"Cryogonal!"

Bryce reached for another Poké Ball, but Kyurem roared again.

The sound struck White like a physical force. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears, but it did nothing. The roar seemed to shake inside his skull.

Poro cried out against his chest.

When White opened his eyes again, Kyurem was staring directly at him.

Everything seemed to stop.

White forgot about Bryce. Forgot about Cryogonal. Forgot about Vanillish lying against the wall.

Those pale yellow eyes were fixed entirely on him.

"White!"

Bryce's voice sounded distant.

Kyurem took a step forward.

White couldn't move.

It wasn't only fear. Something about those eyes held him there. That emptiness, that horrible endless nothing, felt almost familiar in a way White couldn't understand.

For just a moment, he had the strange feeling that Kyurem wasn't looking at him.

It was looking through him.

"White, run!"

Bryce's scream finally broke whatever held him.

White stumbled backward, nearly dropping Poro in the process. Kyurem inhaled, and every loose shard of frost scattered across the ground began to tremble before slowly lifting into the air.

"Get down!"

Bryce crashed into White from the side.

The world turned white.

The blast hit the cavern like an avalanche. White felt himself leave the ground before he understood what had happened. Bryce's arm slipped from around him, and the force sent White skidding across the ice with Poro clutched tightly against his chest. His shoulder struck first, then the side of his head, leaving nothing but a high ringing in his ears for several seconds.

"Poro..." White pushed himself onto his elbows, blinking through the haze. His vision swam before slowly settling. Poro whimpered in his arms, shaken but conscious.

A voice shouted from somewhere beyond the drifting frost.

"White!"

White's head snapped up. "Big Bro!"

As the mist cleared, he finally saw what had happened. A massive wall of jagged ice had erupted through the center of the cavern, completely separating them. Bryce stood on the other side, close enough that White could see the panic on his face through the pale blue barrier.

White scrambled upright and ran toward him. "Big Bro!"

"I'm here!"

White slammed both hands against the ice. It was strangely clear, almost like glass, and for one hopeful moment he expected Bryce to simply break through.

Bryce released Cryogonal immediately. "Flash Cannon!"

A silver beam struck the barrier and flooded the cavern with light. White shielded his face from the blast. When he looked again, the ice was untouched.

Bryce stared at it.

"Again!"

Cryogonal fired a second time. The attack exploded against the wall with enough force to shake loose frost from the ceiling, but when the light faded there was not so much as a scratch.

Bryce's breathing grew heavier. He grabbed another Poké Ball.

"Beartic!"

The large Ice-type appeared beside him with a roar.

"Brick Break! As hard as you can!"

Beartic drove its arm into the barrier.

The impact thundered through the cavern.

Nothing happened.

Not a crack.

Not a chip.

Nothing.

Beartic struck again, then a third time. Each blow echoed through the chamber, but the strange ice remained perfectly smooth.

White's stomach began to twist.

"Why isn't it breaking?"

Bryce didn't answer. He stepped closer and pressed a hand against the barrier as if he might somehow find a weakness the Pokémon had missed.

"Big Bro?"

Bryce looked up at him.

For the first time, White saw that he had no idea what to do.

A low growl rolled through the cavern.

Bryce's head snapped toward the sound.

White slowly looked over his shoulder.

Kyurem was approaching.

The dragon moved through the drifting frost without hurry, each heavy step carrying it closer. Its pale yellow eyes remained fixed on White.

Poro whimpered against his chest.

"Big Bro..."

Bryce looked between White and Kyurem. His eyes darted toward the barrier, then toward the passage stretching behind him.

White pressed himself closer to the ice.

"What do we do?"

Bryce said nothing.

"Big Bro?"

Kyurem took another step.

Bryce suddenly recalled Cryogonal and Beartic.

White blinked.

"What are you doing?"

Bryce shoved the Poké Balls onto his belt and backed away from the barrier.

White's eyes widened.

"Big Bro?"

Bryce looked at him one last time.

There was something in his face White had never seen before. Fear, yes, but something else too. Something desperate.

Then Bryce turned.

And ran.

White stared after him.

For a moment, his mind simply refused to understand what he was seeing.

"Big Bro?"

Bryce disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.

White stepped closer to the barrier.

"Wait."

No answer.

"Big Bro!"

Nothing.

Behind him, Kyurem continued forward.

White struck the ice with his palm. "Come back!"

His voice echoed through the cavern and vanished into the passage Bryce had fled through.

Poro began trembling.

White looked back toward Kyurem, then again toward the empty tunnel.

"He's coming back," White whispered.

The words sounded weak even to him.

"He has to."

Kyurem drew closer.

White hit the barrier again, harder this time.

"BIG BRO!"

Still nothing.

The last image White had of him burned itself into his mind.

Bryce looking at him.

Bryce seeing Kyurem.

Bryce turning away.

Bryce running.

White kept staring at the tunnel long after Bryce disappeared. For a few seconds, he could still hear his footsteps echoing somewhere beyond the darkness, but even those eventually faded.

"Big Bro?"

Nothing answered.

White struck the barrier again, but there was no strength behind it this time. His palm slid slowly down the frozen surface. Behind him, Kyurem stopped moving. Poro whimpered and pressed against White's leg, but White barely noticed. The fear that had been tearing through his chest only moments ago was beginning to disappear, not because he felt safe, but because he suddenly felt nothing at all.

The cavern seemed quieter than before. The pounding of his heart dulled, and even Kyurem's presence, which had terrified him only moments earlier, felt strangely distant. White looked down at his hands and realized they had stopped shaking. He should have been crying. He should have been screaming for Bryce to come back. He should have grabbed Poro and tried to run.

Instead, he simply stood there.

Empty.

The word returned to him. He had seen it in Kyurem's eyes before, that vast absence behind them, something cold and hollow where there should have been fear, anger, or life.

Now White understood it.

His brother was gone. The person who was always supposed to know what to do had looked at him and ran. Something inside White seemed to disappear with him.

Poro tugged desperately at his pants, finally drawing White's attention downward.

"Why did he leave?"

Poro whined softly.

White swallowed, but the ache in his throat never became tears. "He said he'd get us out."

Kyurem took another step, and White slowly raised his head. Those pale yellow eyes met his again, but this time he did not look away. The creature stared at him, and for one strange moment White no longer felt like something insignificant beneath its gaze.

He felt understood.

That frightened him more than anything.

A thin layer of frost spread beneath Kyurem's feet and began crawling across the cavern floor. White watched it come toward him. He knew he should move. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood that he should pick up Poro and run, but his legs refused to listen.

The frost reached his boots.

Cold seeped through the leather.

Poro cried out and leapt into White's arms. White caught him automatically, pulling the Cubchoo tightly against his chest as ice began climbing over his shoes.

"Poro..."

The Cubchoo buried its face beneath White's chin.

At first, the cold burned. White gasped and tightened his grip on Poro as a sharp pain spread through his feet and legs, but it lasted only a moment. Then the pain vanished with the feeling in his legs, and the strange ice continued upward.

White looked toward the tunnel one last time.

No one came.

"He really left."

The words came out quieter than he expected.

The ice reached his waist. Poro trembled violently against him, and White slowly stroked the fur between his ears with fingers he could barely feel.

"It's okay," White whispered. "I've got you."

The words felt strange coming from him. Bryce had said things like that before. White wondered if they had ever meant anything.

Kyurem lowered its head as the ice continued across White's chest and shoulders, slowly spreading over Poro as well. White expected himself to panic again, but the colder he became, the farther everything seemed to drift away.

His fear faded first.

Then his anger.

Then the confusion.

Even the image of Bryce running began to blur at the edges.

White's eyelids grew heavy. For the first time since entering the cavern, everything felt peaceful. There was no fear anymore. No pain. No questions.

Nothing.

White looked into Kyurem's pale yellow eyes.

Empty.

Maybe being empty wasn't so bad.

The ice reached his neck and began creeping across his jaw. Poro gave one last quiet whine, and White closed his eyes, resting his cheek against his partner's head.

"I'm tired."

The frost covered his lips, then his eyelashes. The last thing White felt was Poro's heartbeat pressed against his chest.

Then even that disappeared.

The ice sealed over them both, and the cavern became still.

---

Candice POV

The flame had been burning for almost three minutes.

Candice crouched beside the wall of pale blue ice, watching the fire wash across its surface without leaving so much as a bead of water behind. Her expression, which had begun the morning somewhere between curiosity and excitement, had long since settled into a frown.

"That should be impossible."

Behind her, Professor Rowan adjusted his glasses. "You have said that four times now."

"Because it should still be impossible."

Candice stood and brushed the frost from her knees before glancing toward Cynthia's Garchomp. "Enough."

Garchomp let the Flamethrower die in its jaws, and the flames washing across the wall disappeared. Even sustained heat from a Pokémon as powerful as Cynthia's ace had accomplished nothing. The ice remained exactly as it had been when they entered the chamber.

No melting.

No cracking.

Not even condensation.

Cynthia stepped closer, careful not to touch the frozen surface. "And you're certain this isn't something Ice Pokémon normally produce?"

Candice gave her a look. "Cynthia, I run an Ice-type Gym."

"That wasn't an answer."

"It was absolutely an answer."

A faint smile crossed Cynthia's face, but Rowan remained focused on the ice. He scraped a metal instrument gently across the surface, collecting what little frost came loose before examining it beneath the beam of his flashlight.

"Ordinary Never-Melt Ice is known for resisting heat," Rowan said, "but even that has measurable properties. This is different."

Candice folded her arms. "Different how?"

"That is what we came here to determine."

"Glad we cleared that up."

Cynthia chuckled quietly.

Candice looked back toward the frozen wall. The reports had sounded ridiculous when they first reached Snowpoint. Hunters and Rangers near Lacunosa had found sections of ice deep within the Giant Chasm that remained frozen regardless of season or temperature. Samples removed from the area either refused to melt or deteriorated into ordinary frost before they could be properly transported.

That alone had been enough to interest Rowan.

It had been more than enough to interest Candice.

A form of ice that did not melt was the kind of thing an Ice specialist had difficulty ignoring.

What she had not expected was how uncomfortable it would make her.

"Sneasel."

The Pokémon at her side immediately looked up.

"You feel it too, don't you?"

Sneasel's ears flattened.

Candice frowned.

That had been happening since they entered the deeper sections of the Chasm. Abomasnow had become increasingly quiet, and even Sneasel, who normally treated dangerous places as invitations, had stopped wandering farther than a few steps from her.

Cynthia noticed. "Your Pokémon have been uneasy since we came underground."

"They're Ice-types. The temperature shouldn't bother them."

"Perhaps it isn't the temperature."

Candice glanced at her.

Cynthia was staring farther into the cavern.

The Giant Chasm itself was already the subject of enough stories to fill a library. Some claimed something had fallen from the sky here long ago, leaving the enormous crater behind. Others told of a monster that emerged at night and carried away people and Pokémon. Whatever truth remained beneath those stories, the place had earned its reputation. The deeper they traveled, the fewer signs of life they encountered.

Rowan closed his sample container. "We should continue only as far as necessary. We have enough material for preliminary study."

Candice blinked. "You dragged me across two regions and now you want to turn around?"

"I did not drag you anywhere."

"You sent one letter."

"And you arrived three days early."

"That's basically dragging."

Cynthia raised a hand before Rowan could answer. "Candice."

Sneasel had moved.

The Pokémon stood several yards ahead of them, staring into a narrow passage partially hidden behind a formation of blue ice.

"Sneasel?"

It didn't look back.

Instead, it stepped into the passage.

Candice's expression changed.

"Sneasel, wait."

The Pokémon disappeared around the corner.

Candice followed immediately, with Cynthia and Rowan close behind.

The passage narrowed as they moved deeper. Strange ice covered more and more of the stone until eventually there was almost no natural rock visible at all. Candice ran her fingers close to the surface without touching it. Even through her glove, she could feel cold radiating from it.

Then she heard Sneasel cry out.

Candice broke into a run.

"Sneasel!"

She rounded the corner and nearly collided with the Pokémon.

The passage had opened into a much larger chamber.

Candice stopped.

Cynthia came to a halt beside her.

Professor Rowan said nothing.

The entire chamber was frozen.

Massive sheets of pale ice climbed the walls, while crooked pillars rose from the cavern floor like the remains of some frozen forest. Everything reflected the faint blue light coming from somewhere beneath the ice itself.

But none of them were looking at the cavern.

Sneasel stood in front of a large formation at its center.

Something was inside it.

Candice approached slowly.

"What is that?"

Cynthia's voice was quieter than usual. "I don't know."

As Candice drew closer, the shape became clearer.

First she saw the dark fabric.

Then a hand.

Candice stopped breathing.

"Professor."

Rowan was already moving.

They approached from opposite sides of the formation. The ice here was clearer than what they had encountered elsewhere, almost perfectly transparent beneath several layers of frost.

Candice brushed some of it away.

A face appeared beneath her glove.

She jerked backward.

"Oh my God."

There was a boy inside the ice.

He was young. Ten, perhaps eleven at most. His body had curled around something held tightly against his chest, as though his last instinct before freezing had been to protect it.

Candice moved closer again.

"A Pokémon."

Cynthia crouched beside her. "Cubchoo."

The little Pokémon was trapped within the boy's arms, its face buried against his chest.

Neither moved.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Rowan finally stepped forward and placed one hand near the surface without touching it.

"How long?"

Candice looked at him.

He shook his head. "There is no way to know."

Her gaze returned to the boy.

She had seen frozen Pokémon before. Snowpoint winters could be cruel, and inexperienced trainers occasionally underestimated what severe exposure could do.

This was nothing like that.

The boy did not look dead.

That somehow made it worse.

His skin was pale, almost unnaturally drained of color, but his fingers had not blackened. There was no visible damage from frostbite, and there was something strangely peaceful about his expression.

Candice swallowed.

"Can we get him out?"

Rowan studied the surrounding ice. "Not by force."

"Then we melt it."

"We have already established that heat has little effect."

"Then we use more."

"Candice."

"There's a kid in there."

"I am aware."

Her jaw tightened.

Cynthia placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. "He's right. If that ice is the only thing keeping the structure stable, breaking it carelessly could hurt him."

Candice stared at her. "He might already be dead."

Cynthia didn't answer.

Sneasel suddenly scratched at the ice.

"Sneasel, stop."

The Pokémon ignored her.

It scratched again, then pressed one ear against the frozen surface.

Candice frowned.

"What?"

Sneasel looked at her.

Then back at the boy.

Rowan stepped closer. "Move aside."

Candice watched as he removed another instrument from his pack and pressed it carefully against the ice near the boy's chest.

Nothing happened at first.

Then Rowan's expression changed.

Cynthia noticed immediately. "Professor?"

Rowan adjusted the instrument.

He waited.

Candice's patience lasted three seconds.

"What is it?"

"Quiet."

She glared at him but obeyed.

The chamber fell silent.

Candice could hear Abomasnow breathing behind them. Somewhere farther back, a piece of frost fell from the ceiling and shattered against the ground.

Then the device moved.

Only slightly.

Rowan stared at it.

Candice felt her stomach tighten.

"What?"

He repositioned it.

Again.

A tiny movement.

Regular.

Slow.

But unmistakable.

Rowan looked through the ice at the boy.

"He has a pulse."

Candice stared at him.

"What?"

"A very weak one."

"That's not possible."

"No," Rowan said quietly. "It isn't."

Candice stepped closer to the frozen boy.

For the first time since entering the Giant Chasm, she forgot entirely about the ice they had come to study.

The boy's eyes remained closed. The Cubchoo stayed motionless against his chest. Neither showed any outward sign that life remained inside them.

But somewhere beneath that impossible ice, a heart was still beating.

Candice placed her palm gently against the frozen surface.

"How long have you been in there?"

The boy gave no answer.

The ice remained perfectly still.

Candice kept her hand against the ice for another few seconds before finally pulling it away.

"He has a pulse," she repeated quietly, almost as if saying it again would make the fact easier to understand.

Professor Rowan was already unpacking more equipment. "A pulse does not mean he is stable."

Cynthia stepped closer to the frozen block, her attention fixed on the boy's face. "There's something else."

Candice followed her gaze.

At first, she thought it was just the blue light reflecting through the ice. Then she realized Cynthia was right.

The boy's hair was completely white.

Not pale blond. Not silver.

White.

His eyelashes were the same, and the skin around his eyes seemed almost unnaturally drained of color. Even beneath the cold tint of the ice, there was something strange about him, as if every trace of pigment had been pulled from his body.

Candice frowned. "Was he like that before?"

"There is no way for us to know," Rowan said.

Cynthia leaned closer. "Look at his eyes."

Candice blinked. "His eyes are closed."

"Not completely."

A narrow gap showed beneath one eyelid.

Candice lowered herself until she could see through the ice.

For a second, she assumed she was looking at frost.

Then she realized she was looking at his iris.

White.

No blue.

No gray.

No visible color at all.

Candice straightened slowly.

"That's not normal."

Rowan did not answer. He was studying the ice around the boy's chest now, carefully tracing the shape of the frozen layers without touching them directly.

Candice crossed her arms. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you stop talking because whatever you're thinking is worse than what you want to say."

Rowan sighed. "The ice around him is not uniform."

Cynthia looked over. "Meaning?"

"It is thicker around the exterior, but much thinner immediately surrounding the boy and the Cubchoo."

Candice frowned. "Like an air pocket?"

"Not exactly. More like a shell."

Rowan moved the device lower. "The material surrounding their bodies appears to have formed differently than the ice around it. If I had to guess, I would say the outer layer is structural, while the inner layer is preserving them."

Candice stared at him. "Preserving."

"That is the closest word I have."

Her gaze returned to the boy.

The word felt wrong.

People preserved fossils. Ancient artifacts. Things that were already dead.

Not children.

"So if we break the outside?"

"We may damage whatever is keeping them alive."

"And if we leave them in there?"

Rowan looked at her.

Candice already knew the answer.

"We don't know."

Cynthia crouched near Sneasel, who had not taken its eyes off the frozen boy since they entered the chamber. "Then we need to understand how the ice reacts before we touch the main formation."

Rowan nodded. "Exactly."

Candice looked around the chamber. "There's plenty of it."

They spent the next hour testing everything they could.

Heat accomplished almost nothing.

Abomasnow struck a nearby formation with Wood Hammer and barely left a mark. Sneasel's claws could scrape frost from the surface, but the deeper ice refused to chip. Cynthia tried directing her Garchomp to fire controlled Dragon-type attacks at one of the smaller deposits, only to discover that the damaged section seemed to freeze over again within minutes.

That was the part Candice liked least.

The ice healed.

Not quickly.

Not obviously.

But it healed.

She stood over one of the test marks and watched a thin line of frost slowly creep across it until the crack disappeared.

"That is disgusting."

Cynthia glanced toward her. "Interesting choice of word."

"It's ice. It shouldn't heal."

"No," Rowan said. "It should not."

Candice looked back toward the boy.

He had not moved.

Neither had Cubchoo.

She hated how easy it was to forget they were alive.

"How long can someone survive like that?"

Rowan did not look up from his notes. "Under ordinary circumstances?"

"Yes."

"They cannot."

Candice's jaw tightened.

Cynthia noticed. "Then ordinary circumstances are clearly not relevant."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"It was not meant to be."

Rowan finally closed his notebook. "We cannot safely break the main structure here."

Candice turned toward him. "So what are you suggesting?"

"We stabilize it and transport the entire formation."

She stared at him.

"The whole thing?"

"If possible."

Candice looked at the enormous block of ice.

"You want to carry that out of the Giant Chasm."

"With Pokémon assistance."

"That could take hours."

"Yes."

"And if whatever did this comes back?"

Silence.

That was the question none of them had said aloud since entering the chamber.

Candice glanced toward the darkness beyond the frozen pillars.

The stories of the Giant Chasm suddenly seemed much less ridiculous.

Cynthia stood.

"Then we do it quickly."

Rowan nodded. "Candice, your Pokémon are the best suited for moving something this heavy without exposing it to unnecessary heat."

Candice looked at Abomasnow.

The Pokémon gave a low grunt.

"Yeah, I know."

She turned toward the ice again.

The boy's white face remained motionless beneath the frozen surface.

Candice walked closer and crouched.

"You'd better appreciate this someday."

No response.

"Because this is going to be a nightmare."

Sneasel chirped beside her.

Candice glanced down. "You too?"

Sneasel placed one claw against the ice.

The Cubchoo inside twitched.

Candice froze.

"Sneasel."

The Pokémon stepped back.

Candice leaned closer.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then Cubchoo's paw moved again.

Barely.

But it moved.

"Professor."

Rowan was beside her almost immediately.

"What?"

"The Cubchoo."

They watched.

Another twitch.

Then the boy's fingers tightened slightly in its fur.

Candice's breath caught.

Rowan stared through the ice.

"They are responding."

"To what?"

No one answered.

Sneasel stepped closer again.

The frost inside the formation shifted.

Candice noticed it first.

A thin layer of white spread outward from the boy's hand.

Not toward him.

Away from him.

Across the ice.

Cynthia's expression changed.

"Candice."

"I see it."

The white frost continued outward until it reached Sneasel's claw on the other side.

Sneasel did not move.

The instant the two touched through the ice, the entire chamber gave a low, deep groan.

Candice stood.

"That can't be good."

A crack appeared near the bottom of the formation.

Then another.

Rowan stepped back. "Everyone away from it."

Candice recalled Abomasnow immediately and grabbed Sneasel by the shoulder.

The cracks spread.

Not violently.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Almost as though the ice had finally decided to let go.

A section near the boy's face fractured and fell away.

Cold air poured from the opening.

Candice stared.

The ice was breaking from the inside.

Rowan moved toward it.

"Wait."

Candice caught his arm.

Another piece fell.

Then another.

The frozen shell around the boy and his Cubchoo began to separate in thick layers, each one cracking loose before sliding onto the cavern floor.

Cynthia watched the pattern carefully.

"It isn't collapsing."

Rowan nodded. "No."

Candice looked at the boy.

"It's opening."

Within minutes, most of the outer shell had fallen away.

The inner layer remained.

Thin.

Clear.

Almost like a second skin of ice.

Candice could see the boy perfectly now.

White hair.

White lashes.

White eyes barely visible beneath half-closed lids.

No color anywhere.

He looked less like someone who had frozen to death and more like someone carved from snow.

Candice reached toward him, then stopped before touching the remaining ice.

"Can we remove this part?"

Rowan examined it.

"I don't know."

The boy's fingers moved again.

This time, all three of them saw it.

The thin layer covering his hand cracked.

Candice's eyes widened.

The ice spread apart over his fingers.

Then his wrist.

Then his arm.

The Cubchoo's frozen fur began emerging beside him.

Slowly, the inner shell released them.

The boy's body tipped forward.

Candice lunged and caught him before he hit the ground.

The cold went straight through her gloves.

She nearly dropped him.

"Arceus."

Cynthia moved in immediately and took some of his weight.

"He's freezing."

"No kidding."

The Cubchoo slipped free next.

Sneasel caught the Cubchoo awkwardly against its chest.

Rowan dropped to his knees beside the boy and checked his pulse.

Candice watched his expression.

"Well?"

"It's stronger."

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

The boy did not wake.

His head rested limply against Candice's shoulder, white hair falling across his face. Up close, the absence of color was even more obvious.

Candice brushed the hair away from his eyes.

Nothing.

No reaction.

"Can he hear us?"

"Possibly."

She looked down at him.

"Hey."

The boy remained still.

Candice adjusted her grip and pulled him closer, trying to shield him from the cavern air even though she knew the cold itself clearly wasn't the problem.

"You don't have to wake up yet."

Her voice softened.

"But you're coming with us."

For the first time since they found him, the ice behind them began to melt.

---

Six days later...

The boy had been asleep for six days.

Candice knew because she had counted every one of them.

She sat beside his hospital bed with one leg crossed over the other, absently turning a paper cup of coffee between her hands. It had gone cold nearly an hour ago, but she had stopped noticing. The room was quiet except for the steady beeping of the monitor beside the bed and the occasional footsteps passing through the hallway outside.

He looked different without the ice around him.

Someone had changed him out of the clothes he had been found in and into a hospital gown, and the frost that had clung stubbornly to his hair was finally gone. That only made the extent of his condition more obvious. His hair was completely white from root to tip. His eyebrows and eyelashes had lost their color as well, and his skin seemed strangely washed out beneath the hospital lights.

The doctors had assured Candice that he was not albino. Whatever had stripped the color from him appeared to have been acquired rather than something he had been born with. His body still possessed the structures that should have produced pigment. They simply no longer did.

The strange Cubchoo they had found with him was curled beneath a blanket in a smaller bed near the wall. It had recovered more quickly than the boy, though it refused to leave the room for more than a few minutes at a time. The nurses had tried twice. Both attempts had ended with the Pokémon becoming so distressed that they eventually gave up and allowed it to stay.

Candice understood.

The Cubchoo had been clutched against the boy's chest when they found them. Whatever had happened in the Giant Chasm, they had gone through it together.

A knock sounded against the open door.

Candice looked over as Professor Rowan entered with a folder tucked beneath one arm. Cynthia followed a few steps behind him carrying two fresh cups of coffee.

Candice immediately raised the one in her hand. "Please tell me one of those is mine."

Cynthia handed her a cup. "I assumed that one had been cold for at least an hour."

Candice looked down at it. "Maybe."

"You also forgot lunch."

"I didn't forget."

"When did you eat?"

Candice paused before taking a sip of the fresh coffee. "That's not important."

Rowan ignored them both and stopped near the foot of the boy's bed. Candice watched him open the folder and scan the first page before her patience got the better of her.

"Anything?"

Rowan remained quiet.

Candice sighed. "That means no."

"It means we have learned several things," Rowan replied.

"Do any of those things include who he is?"

"No."

Candice's expression fell.

Rowan turned a page. "The Unovan authorities have compared his description with every active missing child report they could reasonably access. Nothing matches closely enough to establish an identity. The changes to his appearance and the fact that we have no reliable idea when he disappeared make the comparison considerably more difficult."

"What about older reports?"

"They are searching those as well."

Candice frowned. "How old?"

"That is part of the problem."

Cynthia moved closer. "You still can't determine how long he was frozen."

"No."

Candice looked toward the sleeping boy. "Not even approximately?"

"We can establish that it was longer than a few days. Beyond that, the evidence becomes contradictory."

Rowan removed one of the reports from the folder and placed it on the small table beside the bed. "Normally, we would estimate the passage of time using biological deterioration, changes to clothing, environmental exposure, and the condition of the surrounding material. Almost none of those methods are useful here."

"Because the ice preserved everything," Cynthia said.

"Precisely. His body provides almost no reliable indication of elapsed time. The Cubchoo is much the same. Their clothing has undergone some deterioration, but even that is inconsistent. Parts appear almost untouched while others suggest prolonged exposure."

Candice leaned forward. "How prolonged?"

Rowan looked at her. "I don't know."

"Months?"

"Possible."

"A year?"

"Also possible."

Candice stared at him.

"Longer?"

Rowan closed the folder slightly. "I cannot rule it out."

The answer settled heavily over the room.

Candice looked again at the boy.

She tried to imagine him trapped inside the Giant Chasm for a year and couldn't. Two years sounded even more absurd. Five was impossible.

Then again, six days earlier she would have called finding a living child inside a solid block of unmeltable ice impossible too.

Cynthia broke the silence. "If he disappeared that long ago, searching only current records may be why there hasn't been a match."

"Exactly," Rowan said. "We have asked the authorities to expand the search considerably, particularly around settlements near the Giant Chasm."

Candice nodded slowly. "And nobody reported the Cubchoo?"

"Not that we've found."

Her eyes moved toward the little Pokémon.

It had opened its eyes at some point during their conversation and was watching them quietly from beneath the blanket.

Candice wondered how much it understood.

Probably more than any of them.

"So the only person in this room who knows who that kid is can't tell us," she said.

The Cubchoo's ears twitched.

Cynthia smiled faintly. "I don't think it appreciated that."

"Well, if it wants to start writing, I'll apologize."

Rowan gave Candice a tired look before returning to the medical report.

"What about his condition?" she asked.

The slight change in Rowan's expression immediately put her on edge.

"He remains stable."

"You always say that first when the rest is bad."

"The rest is not necessarily bad. It is simply unusual."

"That isn't much better."

Rowan continued before she could interrupt again. "His core temperature remains considerably below what would be considered healthy for an ordinary human."

"How far below?"

"Enough that if you or I maintained the same temperature for any significant amount of time, we would require immediate treatment for hypothermia."

Candice glanced at the boy. "But he doesn't."

"No. His organs are functioning normally."

"And when the doctors warm him?"

"His temperature rises temporarily and then falls back to the same point."

Cynthia frowned. "His body is regulating itself there."

"That appears to be the case."

Candice stared at the blanket covering him. It seemed ridiculous now. They had spent the first night piling blankets around a child whose body apparently preferred temperatures that would leave everyone else shivering uncontrollably.

"What else?"

"His metabolism remains unusually slow. His circulation is normal despite his temperature, and several blood samples contained microscopic crystalline structures that we have not been able to identify."

Candice stopped with the coffee halfway to her mouth.

"Crystalline structures?"

Rowan nodded.

"Ice?"

"We do not know."

"Do they look like ice?"

"Yes."

"Do they melt?"

"No."

Candice lowered her cup. "Then I'm calling them ice until someone gives me a better word."

"That would be scientifically irresponsible."

"You'll survive."

Cynthia hid a smile behind her own cup.

Rowan continued. "More importantly, there appears to be no cellular damage from freezing. None."

Candice's amusement disappeared.

"None?"

"His tissues should show catastrophic damage if he was frozen normally. Ice crystals forming inside cells rupture membranes. That did not happen here. Whatever encased him did not freeze his body in the conventional sense."

"It put him to sleep," Candice said.

Rowan considered the wording. "That may actually be closer."

Candice looked toward the boy again. "And the white hair?"

"Complete depigmentation."

"Permanent?"

"We have no idea."

"Eyes too?"

Rowan nodded. "We briefly observed them during neurological examinations. The irises have been almost entirely stripped of visible pigmentation."

"Can he see?"

"All indications suggest that he can."

Candice leaned back and exhaled slowly. Every answer seemed to produce three more questions.

Cynthia approached the bedside and studied the boy for a moment. "Has there been any progress neurologically?"

"Considerable progress, actually. His brain activity has increased steadily since extraction."

"So why hasn't he woken up?"

Rowan glanced down at the sleeping child. "That remains unclear."

Candice groaned. "I hate that answer."

"I am aware."

For a while, nobody spoke. Candice watched the monitor beside the bed continue its steady rhythm. Six days of sitting beside it had made the sound strangely familiar. She had originally planned to stay until the doctors declared the boy stable, then return to Sinnoh while Rowan handled whatever came afterward.

Somehow, she was still here.

Cynthia seemed to read the thought from her expression.

"You know you don't have to spend every night here."

Candice kept looking at the boy. "I know."

"The nurses will call us if something changes."

"I know."

"And yet you're still sleeping in that chair."

Candice glanced at her. "It's a very comfortable chair."

Cynthia looked at the rigid hospital chair beside the bed.

"No, it isn't."

Candice shrugged.

The truth was harder to explain.

She had found him.

That probably shouldn't have meant anything. She had helped injured trainers before. She had carried lost children down from the routes surrounding Snowpoint. Being a Gym Leader came with responsibilities that had little to do with badges.

This felt different.

Maybe it was because she still remembered seeing his face through that ice.

Maybe it was because nobody seemed to know he existed.

Somewhere, there should have been someone looking for him. Parents. Siblings. Friends. Someone who knew what his voice sounded like, what food he hated, whether he kicked his blankets off while he slept.

Instead, there was nothing.

No name.

No home.

No history.

Only the Cubchoo curled up nearby.

Candice stood and walked toward the bed, pulling the blanket slightly higher over the boy before remembering again that he probably didn't need it.

"You'd better know something when you wake up," she muttered. "Because we're getting nowhere."

Behind her, the Cubchoo suddenly sat upright.

Candice turned.

Its eyes were fixed on the boy.

"What?"

The Pokémon pushed itself out from beneath its blanket.

Cynthia noticed too. "Something's wrong."

"No," Rowan said, already watching the monitor. "Something's changing."

The steady rhythm had begun to accelerate.

Candice stepped aside as Rowan approached the bed. The boy's fingers twitched beneath the blanket.

Once.

Then again.

The Cubchoo scrambled down from its smaller bed and rushed across the room before Candice could stop it. It pulled itself against the side of the mattress and began whining urgently.

"Easy," Candice said. "Give him some room."

The Pokémon ignored her.

The boy's brow tightened.

His breathing, perfectly slow and even for six days, suddenly became deeper.

Then he inhaled sharply.

Candice froze.

His head shifted against the pillow.

Rowan leaned closer, watching his pupils beneath his closed eyelids. "Don't crowd him. We don't know how disoriented he'll be."

Candice nodded, though she didn't take her eyes off him.

The Cubchoo made another quiet sound.

The boy's fingers curled.

Then his eyes opened.

Candice had already been warned about their appearance.

Knowing did not make seeing them any less startling.

His irises were almost entirely white, separated from the whites of his eyes by only the faintest trace of gray. For several seconds, they simply stared toward the ceiling.

He blinked.

Once.

Twice.

His gaze slowly began to move.

The ceiling.

The monitor.

The window.

Rowan.

Cynthia.

Candice.

There was no recognition in his face.

Only confusion.

Then the Cubchoo cried out.

The boy's head turned immediately.

Something changed in his expression.

Recognition.

His pale eyes widened as the Cubchoo struggled to climb onto the bed.

The boy lifted one trembling hand toward it.

The Cubchoo grabbed his wrist with both paws.

For the first time since opening his eyes, the boy seemed to breathe normally.

The boy stared at the Cubchoo for several seconds, his pale eyes fixed on it as if nothing else in the room existed. His hand trembled where the Pokémon held his wrist, but some of the fear had already begun to leave his face.

"Poro."

The word came out weak and rough.

Candice glanced at Rowan.

The Cubchoo made a high, relieved sound and pulled itself farther onto the bed. The boy immediately reached for it, gathering the Pokémon against his chest with both arms. Poro buried its face beneath his chin and clung to the front of his hospital gown.

Candice smiled faintly. "So that's your name."

The boy looked at her.

Candice nodded toward the Cubchoo. "Poro."

His eyes dropped back to the Pokémon.

"Poro," he repeated, more confidently this time.

Rowan moved closer to the bedside, though he kept enough distance not to crowd him. "Can you understand me?"

The boy looked at him and gave a small nod.

"Good. Do you know where you are?"

His gaze moved around the room again. "No."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"You're in a hospital," Rowan said. "You've been unconscious for several days."

The boy frowned, clearly trying to make sense of the words. His fingers moved slowly through Poro's fur as though the familiar motion helped keep him grounded.

Candice pulled the chair closer and sat beside the bed. "We found you in the Giant Chasm."

The reaction was immediate.

The boy went rigid.

Poro felt it too. The Cubchoo lifted its head and looked at him.

Candice noticed the sudden change. "Do you know that name?"

The boy's brow tightened.

"Giant... Chasm."

He seemed to test the words.

For a moment, Candice thought something might come back to him. Instead, his expression became strained.

"I don't know."

"That's okay," she said quickly.

The boy closed his eyes.

A flash of something crossed his face.

Cold.

Darkness.

A silhouette disappearing into a tunnel.

He opened his eyes again and inhaled sharply.

Poro immediately pressed closer.

Candice leaned forward. "Hey. Don't force it."

The boy looked at her. "Who are you?"

"Candice."

He stared blankly.

"That's me," she added. "Candice."

She pointed toward Cynthia. "That's Cynthia."

Cynthia offered him a small smile.

"And the grumpy one is Professor Rowan."

Rowan sighed.

Candice looked back at the boy. "We were studying the ice in the Chasm when we found you."

The boy's eyes moved toward Rowan.

"The ice?"

Rowan nodded. "You and your Cubchoo were completely encased in it."

The boy looked down at Poro.

His grip tightened slightly.

"How long?"

The three adults exchanged a glance.

Candice hated the question because she already knew what Rowan was going to say.

"We don't know," he answered.

The boy looked up.

"You don't know?"

"The ice preserved you in a way we do not fully understand. It makes determining how much time passed extremely difficult."

His expression became more confused.

"Was it... long?"

"Possibly."

Rowan's voice remained careful.

"We have reason to believe you were there longer than a few days. It could have been months. It could have been longer."

The boy stared at him.

Candice watched his face closely.

There was no sudden horror. No recognition of a date he had missed.

That concerned her more than if he had panicked.

"Do you know what year it is?" Rowan asked.

The boy opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

His fingers stopped moving through Poro's fur.

"I..."

He looked toward the window.

"I don't know."

Rowan nodded slowly. "That's alright."

"What happened to me?"

"We're still trying to understand that."

The boy looked down at himself.

His hands were pale beneath the hospital lights.

He turned one over.

Then the other.

His gaze lingered on his fingers.

"What?"

Candice frowned. "What is it?"

The boy slowly lifted a hand toward his hair and caught a few strands between his fingers.

He stared at them.

White.

His breathing changed.

"What happened to my hair?"

Candice's expression softened.

"We don't know."

The boy looked at her sharply.

"It's white."

"I know."

"No."

He pulled more of it forward as if expecting the color to change.

"It wasn't."

That got Rowan's attention.

"You remember your hair?"

The boy stopped.

For several seconds, he didn't move.

Then his face tightened.

"I think so."

"What color was it?" Cynthia asked gently.

He tried to answer.

Nothing came.

"I don't know."

His voice cracked.

Poro whimpered.

The boy looked around the room again, faster this time. His eyes moved from Candice to Rowan to Cynthia and then back to Poro.

"What's my name?"

Nobody answered immediately.

Candice felt her stomach sink.

"We were hoping you could tell us."

The boy stared at her.

His expression went completely still.

"What?"

"We haven't been able to identify you."

He shook his head once.

"No."

Candice leaned closer. "It's okay."

"No, I..."

He pressed one hand against his forehead.

"I know it."

Poro watched him anxiously.

"I have to know it."

The monitor beside him began to speed up.

Rowan glanced toward it.

"Don't push yourself."

The boy ignored him.

His eyes squeezed shut.

A house.

Snow.

Someone laughing.

A hand resting on his head.

Then nothing.

He opened his eyes.

"I can't remember."

Candice said nothing.

The boy looked down.

"I remember Poro."

The Cubchoo immediately made a quiet sound at the mention of its name.

The boy pulled it closer.

"I remember him."

"That's good," Candice said.

"But I don't remember me."

The words seemed to hollow him out.

Candice had no immediate answer.

Cynthia stepped closer to the bedside. "Memory loss after trauma isn't always permanent."

The boy looked at her.

"You may recover pieces with time."

"May?"

Cynthia hesitated.

That was answer enough.

The boy looked away.

For a long moment, the room was silent.

Then Candice noticed him staring at the blanket.

"What?"

He didn't answer.

His pale eyes moved from the white blanket to the white strands of hair resting against his shoulders.

Then to his hands.

Candice waited.

"Everything's white."

She looked around.

"What do you mean?"

"My hair."

He touched it again.

"My eyes too, right?"

Candice paused.

The boy noticed.

"They are."

He looked down at himself again.

"White."

The word lingered in the room.

Candice tilted her head. "White?"

He didn't respond at first.

His eyes remained on his hands.

"I need a name."

"You don't have to decide that now."

The boy looked at her.

"Yes, I do."

There was something firmer in his voice now.

Small, but there.

Candice studied him.

"What about your real name?"

He went quiet.

"I don't know it."

"You might remember."

"Maybe."

He looked down at Poro.

"But until then..."

The Cubchoo rested its head against his chest.

The boy ran one hand gently between its ears.

"White."

Candice smiled faintly.

"That what you want us to call you?"

He thought about it.

Then nodded.

"White."

Rowan made a note in the folder.

Cynthia's expression softened.

Candice leaned back in her chair.

"Alright then."

White looked at her.

She smiled.

"Nice to meet you, White."

He stared at her for a moment, as though the words were unfamiliar.

Then he looked down at Poro.

For the first time since waking, the emptiness in his expression seemed a little less complete.

---

The next few days passed slowly.

White slept through most of the first one. The doctors had warned Candice that his body would need time to adjust after waking, though nobody seemed particularly confident about what exactly it was adjusting from. He would stay awake for twenty or thirty minutes, answer a few questions, eat whatever little food he could manage, then drift back to sleep with Poro tucked against his side.

The Cubchoo refused to leave him.

That much had not changed.

What Candice had not expected was for White to develop much the same attitude toward her.

She first noticed it the morning after he woke.

A nurse had asked Candice to step outside while they examined him. She had agreed without thinking much of it, leaving Poro behind and following Rowan into the hallway to discuss the results of another round of tests. They had made it halfway through the conversation when shouting came from inside the room.

Candice rushed back in.

White was sitting upright in bed, breathing hard as two nurses tried unsuccessfully to convince him to lie back down. Frost had formed across the metal railing beside his hand, thin white crystals spreading toward the mattress.

Poro stood between him and the nurses with his tiny arms spread protectively.

The moment White saw Candice in the doorway, he stopped.

Not gradually.

Immediately.

His breathing remained heavy, but his shoulders lowered.

Candice glanced at the frost, then at him. "What happened?"

One of the nurses sighed. "We were trying to examine him. He became distressed when he realized you were gone."

White looked away.

Candice raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"No."

The answer came so quickly that one of the nurses almost laughed.

Candice looked at the ice coating the bed railing.

"Right."

White pulled the blanket farther over himself.

Candice walked back to the chair beside his bed and sat down. "I was thirty feet away."

He said nothing.

"I wasn't leaving."

Still nothing.

Poro climbed back onto the mattress and curled against White's leg.

Candice looked toward the nurses. "Try again."

The examination went considerably better with her sitting beside him.

At first she assumed it was simply because she had been there when he woke. She was the first person White remembered seeing besides Poro, so it made sense that he would associate her with safety.

Then it kept happening.

White tolerated Rowan. He seemed uncertain around Cynthia but never particularly afraid of her. Nurses and doctors were treated with quiet suspicion, though he usually did whatever they asked once their intentions were explained. Strangers were different. If someone entered the room without warning, his entire posture changed.

With Candice, he relaxed.

Not completely.

White never seemed completely relaxed.

But enough.

On the third morning, Candice arrived later than usual and found him standing beside the window.

He was still weak enough that the doctors had forbidden him from walking without supervision, but apparently that rule had lasted until the moment White decided he was tired of following it. One hand rested against the wall for support while Poro stood anxiously beside his feet.

Candice stopped in the doorway.

"You know you're supposed to be in bed."

White looked over his shoulder.

"I was."

"And now?"

"I'm not."

Candice stared at him for a moment.

"That is technically true."

White turned back toward the window.

Snow had begun falling outside.

It wasn't much. Just a light dusting drifting between the buildings, barely enough to settle on the streets before melting.

White watched it anyway.

Candice approached him.

"You like snow?"

He took a while to answer.

"I think so."

"You think?"

White lifted one hand and touched the cold glass.

"It feels familiar."

Candice's expression softened.

"Do you remember anything?"

He shook his head.

"No places?"

"No."

"People?"

Another shake.

"Anything besides Poro?"

White looked toward the Cubchoo.

"Sometimes."

Candice waited.

He stared through the window.

"I remember being cold."

That wasn't particularly surprising.

"And someone."

Candice became still.

"Someone?"

White nodded.

"A person?"

"I think."

"What did they look like?"

"I don't know."

His brow furrowed.

"I can't see his face."

His.

Candice made a mental note of it.

"What do you remember?"

White remained quiet for so long that she thought he might not answer.

"He was running."

Candice looked at him.

"Away from something?"

White's pale eyes remained fixed on the falling snow.

"Away from me."

There was no accusation in his voice.

That somehow made it worse.

Candice chose her next words carefully. "Memories can get mixed up after something frightening."

"Maybe."

"You might remember more later."

White lowered his hand from the window.

"Maybe."

Candice had started to hate that word almost as much as she hated I don't know.

She bumped his shoulder lightly with hers.

"Come on. Back to bed before somebody realizes I'm letting you break the rules."

"But you're the Gym Leader."

White said it casually.

Candice stopped.

"How do you know that?"

He looked at her.

"You told me."

"Oh."

Candice narrowed her eyes.

White's mouth moved.

Barely.

But she saw it.

"Did you just smile at me?"

"No."

"You absolutely did."

"I didn't."

Candice grinned as she guided him back toward the bed. "Okay, Snowflake."

White stopped walking.

"No."

"Oh, you don't like that one?"

"No."

"Frosty?"

"No."

"Vanilla?"

White stared at her.

Candice laughed.

It was the first time she saw genuine annoyance on his face.

Strangely, she considered it progress.

By the fourth day, the doctors were discussing discharge.

Physically, White had recovered far faster than any of them expected. His muscles had weakened somewhat during his time within the ice, but not nearly to the degree they should have. He could walk on his own, eat normally, and showed no neurological impairment beyond his memory loss.

Everything unusual about his body appeared to be stable.

His temperature remained low.

His pigmentation remained absent.

The strange crystalline formations in his blood remained unexplained.

And the frost continued appearing occasionally when he became frightened or overwhelmed.

Nobody knew whether any of those things would ever change.

His memory showed even less progress.

White knew language. He understood numbers, basic geography, Pokémon, battling, and most of the ordinary knowledge expected from a child his age. He knew what a Poké Ball was. He knew what a Pokémon Center did. He recognized species when shown photographs of them.

But anything connected to himself was fractured.

He could remember Poro.

He remembered snow.

He occasionally remembered a voice or a hand or the feeling of following someone larger than himself.

Nothing had a name.

Nothing had a place.

There was another problem too.

They still had nowhere to send him.

Candice stood outside his hospital room that afternoon with Cynthia and Rowan while White slept inside.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

Rowan adjusted the papers in his hands. "The Unovan authorities will arrange temporary care while they continue searching for his family."

Candice frowned immediately.

"Temporary care where?"

"A facility equipped to house unidentified minors."

"He's not going to like that."

"That is unfortunately not the deciding factor."

Candice folded her arms.

Cynthia watched her.

Rowan noticed too. "Candice."

"What?"

"You cannot solve every unfortunate situation personally."

"I didn't say I was going to."

"No," Cynthia said. "Your face did."

Candice looked between them.

"My face didn't say anything."

Cynthia smiled. "It has been saying quite a lot for the last four days."

Candice glanced through the small window in the hospital door.

White was asleep on his side, one hand resting on Poro's back.

She frowned.

"He doesn't know anyone here."

"That is precisely why the authorities are continuing the search," Rowan replied.

"And until they find someone?"

"He will be cared for."

"By strangers."

Rowan sighed. "Everyone is a stranger to him at the moment."

Candice looked back at him. "I'm not."

The words came out before she really thought about them.

The hallway went quiet.

Candice blinked.

Cynthia's expression changed slightly.

Rowan studied her.

Candice rubbed the back of her neck. "You know what I mean."

"I believe we do," Cynthia said.

Candice looked through the window again.

She hadn't planned for any of this.

She had come to Unova to study ice.

That was it.

A strange report, an excuse to travel, maybe something interesting to bring back to Snowpoint.

Instead she had found a child inside a glacier.

And now, somehow, that child wouldn't sleep properly if she wasn't somewhere nearby.

"It's probably because I'm an Ice trainer," she said.

Rowan raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious."

Candice looked down the hallway as if trying to put the thought together herself.

"He reacts to my Pokémon differently. You saw him with Abomasnow yesterday."

Cynthia nodded.

White had been introduced to Candice's Pokémon gradually once the doctors permitted it. He had been cautious around all of them, but something changed when Abomasnow entered the room. White had walked toward the enormous Pokémon without hesitation and placed a hand against its fur.

Abomasnow, normally reserved around unfamiliar humans, had immediately lowered its head for him.

Froslass had been stranger.

She had stared at White for nearly a minute before drifting close enough to touch one frozen hand against his forehead. White had closed his eyes.

Candice had never seen Froslass do that with anyone.

"He likes the cold," Candice continued. "Ice-types calm him down. Maybe I do too because he associates me with them."

"Possible," Rowan admitted.

Candice looked at him. "You believe me?"

"I said possible."

"I'll take it."

Cynthia's smile faded into something gentler.

"And when you return to Sinnoh?"

Candice went quiet.

That was the problem.

Her responsibilities had already been waiting nearly a week. Snowpoint had an acting Gym supervisor, but Candice couldn't remain in Unova indefinitely.

White, however, could not simply follow her home.

At least, that was what she had told herself.

The hospital door opened behind them.

All three turned.

White stood there.

He was barefoot, wearing the loose clothes the hospital had given him, with Poro clinging to one leg.

Candice stared at him.

"How much of that did you hear?"

White didn't answer.

His eyes moved between Rowan and Cynthia before settling on Candice.

"You're leaving?"

Candice's chest tightened.

"Eventually."

"When?"

"I don't know yet."

White looked down.

Poro pressed closer to his ankle.

Candice stepped toward him. "Hey. That doesn't mean I'm disappearing."

White gave a small nod.

He didn't believe her.

She could tell immediately.

Something about his expression had changed. The same blank stillness she had seen whenever his missing memories overwhelmed him had begun settling over his face again.

Candice crouched so they were closer to eye level.

"You know you're not supposed to walk around without shoes, right?"

White ignored that.

"Can I come?"

Candice stopped.

Rowan looked away as though suddenly fascinated by the opposite wall.

Cynthia said nothing.

White's pale eyes stayed on Candice.

"Come where?"

"With you."

"To Sinnoh?"

He nodded.

Candice opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

White looked down again.

"Never mind."

He turned toward the room.

Candice caught his wrist gently.

"Wait."

White looked back.

She stared at him for a few seconds.

This was ridiculous.

She was a Gym Leader.

She had challengers, trainers, paperwork, responsibilities, and an entire city that expected her to occasionally behave like a functioning adult.

She knew almost nothing about this child.

She didn't know his real name.

She didn't know where he came from.

She didn't know whether someone was searching for him.

She certainly didn't know what she was supposed to do with a ten-year-old boy who occasionally froze furniture when he got upset.

Candice looked at Poro.

The Cubchoo stared back.

Then she looked at White.

He was trying very hard not to look hopeful.

Candice sighed.

"Professor."

Rowan closed his eyes briefly.

"No."

"I haven't even asked anything."

"I know what you are about to ask."

"Then we're saving time."

"Candice."

She smiled.

"How difficult would it be?"

Rowan stared at her.

Cynthia began laughing quietly.

White looked between all three of them in confusion.

Candice stood and put a hand gently on his white hair.

"Don't get excited yet."

White looked up at her.

"We have paperwork."

His expression remained uncertain.

Candice smiled.

"A lot of paperwork."

For the first time since she had found him beneath the ice, White reached for her without fear or hesitation.

His fingers wrapped around the sleeve of her coat.

Candice looked down at his hand.

Then at him.

Something in her expression softened.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I think we'll figure something out."

---

Three days later, White stood beside Candice at the terminal with Poro held tightly against his chest.

The paperwork had taken longer than Candice expected and somehow less time than Rowan had predicted. With Rowan and Cynthia vouching for her and the Unovan and Sinnoh Leagues coordinating the arrangement, she had been granted temporary guardianship while the search for White's family continued. Unofficially, everyone involved seemed relieved that the strange, unidentified boy from the Giant Chasm had somewhere stable to go.

White had spoken little that morning. He followed Candice through the station, stayed close when strangers passed, and occasionally looked back toward the doors behind them as though expecting someone to appear.

No one did.

When the call came for passengers traveling to Sinnoh, Candice adjusted the strap of her bag and looked down at him.

"Ready?"

White stared through the enormous windows toward the waiting ship.

"I think so."

"That convincing, huh?"

He glanced at her.

Candice smiled and started forward. After a moment, White followed.

They had almost reached the gate when he stopped.

Candice turned. "What is it?"

White was looking behind them.

Past the crowds.

Past the terminal.

Toward a region he could no longer remember.

For just a moment, something pulled at him.

A snowy road.

A warm hand resting on his head.

Someone laughing.

Then pale yellow eyes.

A figure turning away.

Running.

The memory vanished before White could hold onto it.

His grip tightened around Poro.

"White?"

He looked up at Candice.

"Nothing."

Candice studied him, then held out her hand.

White stared at it.

He didn't know why the gesture made his chest hurt.

For a few seconds, he simply stood there.

Then he reached out and took it.

Candice gave his hand a gentle squeeze before leading him toward the gate.

White never looked back again.

He did not know that somewhere in Unova, a family still mourned a child they believed had died years ago. He did not know that an older brother carried the weight of leaving him behind every day. He did not know that beneath the Giant Chasm, something ancient had changed him in ways none of them yet understood.

He knew only three things.

Poro was beside him.

Candice was holding his hand.

And when someone asked his name, he finally had an answer.

White.

For now, that was enough.

---

AN: Aaaaaaand cut!!! Wow, that was a lot of writing! I hope you guys like the small bit of angst I put into this prologue here to (hopefully) get the ball rolling.. I decided that I wanted to make my first published fanfic about a personal OC of mine in the Pokemon world because well.. It's just really fun and easy to make a good story from there! I do plan on keeping many of the canon in-game and story elements, but also plan on switching up a few things to keep the overall more serious narrative flowing properly. I'll also keep a comprehensive list of Pokemon of all relevant characters on every chapter from now on (once they start getting a little annoying to keep track of) Anyways, I look forward to sharing more of this story soon!!!

 

[pink_boy]

This is amazing! Loving the White Candice relashionship!

 

[BenevolentPumpkin]

I love the way you write your story. I finished that chapter as fast as I could and I can't wait for the next one. Please continue to update because I'm addicted.

 

[blue butterfly of death]

This is amazing! Loving the White Candice relashionship!

Click to shrink...

thank you so much!!!

 

[blue butterfly of death]

I love the way you write your story. I finished that chapter as fast as I could and I can't wait for the next one. Please continue to update because I'm addicted.

Click to shrink...

I have a couple pretty much finished already.. so hopefully I'll be able to pump them out soon haha.. but thank you so much for reading and enjoying!

 

[blue butterfly of death]

A/N: Quick note before I hope you guys read before the story (I'll add the rest I have to say at the bottom): Thank you guys so much for the support on the first chapter! I had this one locked and ready in the chamber, along with 2 others I have to edit and polish—after which updates will become more infrequent I did however try to get rid of the individual lines I seem to like doing so much, so please enjoy!! And as always, feel free to leave any criticisms and thoughts after reading!

Chapter 1: Thaw

---

Snowpoint City was cold enough that most people had decided not to leave their homes that morning. White was nearly three kilometers outside of it.

The city had disappeared behind the snowfall some time ago, swallowed by the storm until there was nothing left but forest, stone, and white. Pines crowded the lower slopes of the mountains, their branches sagging beneath accumulated snow, while stretches of open ground left nothing between the wind and anyone unfortunate enough to stand in its path. White stood at the edge of one such clearing and listened, snow gathering in his hair without melting. He wore a dark sweater beneath a thin jacket, the front left open despite the cold. The wind had been strong enough to drive most wild Pokémon into shelter hours ago. White barely seemed to notice it.

Beside him, Poro sniffed the air. White glanced down. "Anything?"

The Cubchoo sniffed again, then shook his head. White looked back toward the trees. Nothing moved, which meant very little. A branch creaked somewhere to his left. Another shifted farther uphill. Snow whispered against pine needles, covering old tracks almost as quickly as they were made. White checked the watch on his wrist. Thirty-four minutes. Candice had said the exercise would take twenty. His expression changed by almost nothing, but Poro looked up at him anyway.

"She's cheating."

Poro nodded solemnly.

A voice came down through the trees, bright and entirely unbothered by the weather. "Oh, that's rich. You haven't even found me yet and I'm already cheating?"

White turned slowly toward the sound. Nothing.

The laugh that followed came from a different direction, which meant it had bounced off the rocks and told him nothing. "Don't look so offended. Your face is going to freeze that way, and then I'll have to explain it to the League."

White said nothing.

"You know, normal teenagers complain out loud. It's very healthy. Go ahead. I've clearly got time."

Silence.

"That's what I thought."

Poro covered his mouth with both paws. White looked down at him, and the Cubchoo immediately stopped. A sharp crack split the air.

White moved. "Down."

An Ice Shard tore through the space above Poro and buried itself in the trunk behind them. Frost spidered across the bark as White's eyes tracked the direction it had come from. A dark shape vanished between two trees.

Weavile.

"Powder Snow."

Poro inhaled and released a thick cloud of crystalline frost into the forest. The attack spread between the trees, mixing with the storm and turning already poor visibility into something nearly useless. White watched the snow instead of the trees. One branch shook, but the movement was wrong. Another dropped its load farther to the right. Then a patch of powder beneath a pine shifted inward.

White pointed. "Right. Icy Wind."

Poro spun and exhaled. Frozen air tore through the trees just as Weavile emerged, throwing loose snow from the branches and briefly outlining its dark body against the white. It twisted in midair and landed against the trunk of another pine.

"Again."

Poro redirected the attack. Weavile sprang away before the blast could catch it, and the Icy Wind struck bark instead. For the briefest moment, White lost sight of it. That was enough.

"Behind you," Candice called from somewhere above, cheerful as a weather report.

White turned too late. Weavile appeared at his side, one claw already dark with the energy of Night Slash.

"Down."

Poro flattened himself. The claw passed over his head and carved through the snowbank behind him before Weavile landed between them and the path uphill.

From somewhere in the trees, Candice whistled. "Oh, that was almost good. Genuinely. I'd put that on the fridge."

White stared at Weavile. "Almost."

"Don't pout."

"I'm not."

"White. That's your pout. I've been cataloguing it for five years."

White's eyes narrowed slightly.

"And there's the other one," Candice said, delighted. "That's my favorite."

Weavile grinned.

White ignored both of them and crouched beside Poro. "Can't outrun it."

Poro nodded.

"Terrain."

The Cubchoo followed his gaze uphill. A narrow pass climbed between two ridges of stone, and heavy snow had collected along one side where the wind had built a deep shelf against the rocks. White studied it for several seconds, then pointed. Poro's ears lifted. They started climbing. White made no effort to hide their tracks now. Poro followed directly behind him, dragging his paws rather than lifting them, leaving a trail obvious enough that even an inexperienced tracker could have followed it. Behind them, there was no sound from Weavile. White preferred hearing it.

They reached the narrow pass and stopped beneath the overhang.

"Wait."

Poro tensed. Snow continued to fall. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. Poro shifted, but White raised one finger. A shadow moved across the snow.

Above.

White looked up. Weavile dropped from the ridge.

"Now."

Poro fired Icy Wind into the snow shelf. The overhang cracked, then collapsed in a sheet of packed snow between them. Weavile vanished beneath it.

White turned immediately. "Go."

They ran uphill. Behind them came a muffled impact, then silence. Poro looked back, but White kept his eyes ahead.

"Keep moving."

They reached the top of the slope. Through the storm, a strip of red cloth fluttered from a crooked pine farther along the ridge.

The marker.

Poro chirped. White nodded once and started toward it. Thirty meters. Twenty. White slowed. Poro noticed. The forest behind them remained quiet. White stopped entirely.

"Too easy."

A voice drifted down from the rocks above, warm with something close to pride. "Well, look at that. Five years and something finally stuck."

White looked up. Candice stood on an outcrop above them, one hand wrapped around a steaming travel mug. Somehow, after nearly an hour in the same storm, she looked entirely comfortable. White stared at the mug.

Candice followed his gaze. "What?"

Silence.

"Yes, it's tea. It's hot. It's mine."

White continued staring.

"You could have brought your own, you know. There's a whole kitchen. I've seen you in it."

He looked away.

Candice smiled into the steam. "There he is."

Poro pointed accusingly at the mug.

"Oh, don't you start too. You're both so dramatic. Honestly, I don't know where either of you gets it —"

The snow behind them exploded. White spun. Weavile burst from the drift, throwing powder from its shoulders as it lunged forward.

"Poro, Powder Snow!"

The Cubchoo attacked immediately. Frost engulfed the ridge, and White disappeared into it with him. Weavile entered the cloud without slowing. White heard movement to his left.

"Poro, right."

Wrong.

A claw emerged from the haze on the right. Night Slash struck Poro across the side. The Cubchoo cried out and tumbled through the snow.

"Poro."

White moved toward him. Weavile was already there. It planted one foot beside Poro and lowered a claw against his shoulder. The dark glow faded from the attack, leaving the message unmistakable. Poro froze. White stopped. Silence settled over the ridge. Candice took another sip of tea.

"And that's the exercise."

White stared at Weavile. The Pokémon looked unbearably pleased with itself. Poro slowly sat up, and White immediately crouched beside him to check where the attack had landed. The strike had been controlled, enough to knock him down but not enough to leave more than a shallow mark beneath his fur.

"You okay?"

Poro nodded.

White brushed snow from his head. "Good."

Weavile tapped White's shoulder. White looked at it. It tapped him again and pointed toward itself.

"No."

Weavile grinned.

"No."

Candice came down from the rocks with the sure-footedness of someone who had grown up on them. "Oh, give him something. Look at that face. He beat both of you before breakfast and he wants it acknowledged."

White stood. "We buried him."

"For about eight seconds."

"Still buried."

"And then he got up, walked over, and flattened your partner in front of you." She reached out and tugged a clump of snow out of his hair. "Which, if you're curious, is called losing."

His expression flattened.

"There it is again. I'm going to start giving them names."

White started toward the marker.

Candice followed. "Where are you going?"

He pointed.

"The marker."

"You lost."

"He didn't reach me."

"He didn't have to. Your partner went down."

White stopped. Candice's voice was still casual, but something firmer had entered it. White looked back at Poro. The Cubchoo was standing again, glaring at Weavile from several feet away.

"You were treating this like a race," Candice said. "The marker wasn't the real objective."

White looked at her.

"The objective was getting both of you there. And before you decide I'm only here to ruin your morning — you saw the avalanche and used it, you kept Weavile from owning the whole fight, and you actually made him work, which almost nobody does anymore. All good. All genuinely good."

White waited. Candice grinned.

"But?"

"See? You do know how conversations work. I'll tell Rowan. He owes me money."

White said nothing.

"You got impatient. You knew that last stretch was too easy, you said it out loud, and then the second you saw me standing on a rock you let me distract you."

His gaze dropped briefly to her mug.

Candice looked down at it too. "Do not blame the tea."

White looked away.

"The tea did nothing. The tea has never done anything to you."

He began walking.

Candice followed immediately, boots crunching to catch up. "You really hate losing."

"No."

"White."

Silence.

"You really hate losing."

He kept walking.

"Which is objectively hilarious, because you do it a lot."

White stopped. Candice nearly walked into him. Poro made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. White glanced back at her.

Candice's grin widened. "There. That's the face. That's the one I get up early for."

White turned away. Behind them, Weavile chirped smugly. White reached down, packed a handful of snow into a loose ball, and tossed it backward without looking. Weavile dodged easily. Candice laughed loud enough to send several Murkrow bursting from a nearby tree. They started back toward Snowpoint. For a time, only the storm spoke. White walked beside Poro, occasionally glancing down to make sure the Cubchoo was still moving normally. Poro seemed more offended than injured, which was probably preferable. Candice managed nearly a full minute of silence. For Candice, that was exceptional.

"You did well."

White looked at her.

"I mean it. Still lost, obviously."

He looked forward again.

"But better," she continued. "Five months ago, Weavile would've had you before you got anywhere near that ridge. Today you made him use Agility twice, buried him under half a hillside, and forced him to actually think about it. He hates thinking. Look at him. He's still sulking."

Weavile made an offended sound behind them.

"Oh, hush. You know I'm right."

White glanced at Poro. The Cubchoo was listening too.

Candice bumped White lightly with her shoulder. "You're getting good."

White nearly lost his footing from the unexpected contact. Candice pretended not to notice.

"Which is convenient, considering tomorrow."

White looked at her. She kept walking.

"Don't give me that look. You know what tomorrow is."

"I know."

"Good. I wasn't sure. Yours is a little harder to forget than most."

White's gaze shifted toward the snow ahead. Technically, it wasn't his birthday. Nobody knew when White had been born. Doctors had estimated his age after he woke, but the date itself had been impossible to recover. There had been no records to match him to, no identification, no memories that could provide an answer. Eventually, paperwork had required a date. Candice had chosen the day she found him in the ice.

She had never done much ceremony for that reason. The first year, when White had asked why that day, she had simply shrugged and told him that if they didn't know when he'd entered the world, they could at least celebrate when he'd come back to it. The date had stayed. Every year since, Candice had insisted on cake. Every year since, White had pretended to dislike how much attention she gave it.

"Fifteen," Candice said. "Big year."

"Tomorrow."

"Yes, White. That's generally how birthdays work."

He gave her a flat look.

She smiled. "I'm proud you remembered."

White sighed. Tomorrow he would turn fifteen, at least according to every official document in Sinnoh. Which meant that tomorrow, for the first time, the League would stop being the thing standing between him and everywhere else.

Through the trees ahead, the storm had thinned enough for Snowpoint to appear in the distance, little more than a collection of dark shapes beneath the white.

Home.

Candice followed his gaze. "You know they're still going to make you sit the written portion."

White's shoulders dropped slightly.

Candice brightened immediately. "There it is. That's what I've been saving that one for since yesterday."

"Poro."

The Cubchoo looked up.

"Powder Snow."

Candice stepped backward, one hand raised. "Hey. Hey. I am still your legal guardian."

He glanced at her.

"For now."

Candice stared at him. Then she laughed, loud and delighted, the sound carrying out over the trees.

"Okay. Okay, that one was good. I'm allowed to be a little proud of that."

White said nothing, but the corner of his mouth moved just enough for her to catch it.

---

Candice POV

Candice let White and Poro walk ahead of her, mostly because White was still sulking. He would deny it, of course. He would say he was thinking, or checking on Poro, or simply walking. White had collected an impressive number of words over the last five years for what was, in Candice's professional opinion, sulking. She smiled into her tea as she watched him move through the snow with Poro close to his boots and Weavile stalking along several paces to his left. White had not spoken in almost three minutes. Poro had tried twice to get his attention and received nothing more than a brief glance each time.

Definitely sulking.

"You know," Candice called, "most people would be thrilled about making one of my strongest Pokémon work that hard. There are trainers out there who would frame that loss. Hang it in the hallway. Maybe we should get you a little plaque — Second Place, Very Nearly."

White looked back at her.

Candice grinned. "There he is."

He faced forward again without answering. Weavile made a pleased sound and quickened its pace until it was walking alongside him. White looked down at it. Weavile looked up. The two stared at each other for several seconds before White looked away first. Candice nearly laughed again. Five years ago, she would have given anything for moments like this.

The thought came quietly enough that it almost surprised her. Back then, White had spoken only when he needed something, and sometimes not even then. He had followed her through Snowpoint like a shadow, always close enough that she could reach him if she turned around. The first few months had been the worst. If she left a room without telling him where she was going, he would go still. If she stayed gone too long, frost would begin creeping over whatever he was touching. He had hated crowds, hated questions even more, and almost never complained.

That had worried her most. Now he complains all the time. Not properly, obviously. White had somehow learned how to make one look carry the emotional weight of an entire argument, but Candice counted it as progress. A lot had changed in five years. Not enough, maybe. But a lot.

The forest began thinning as they descended toward Snowpoint, and through the storm rooftops slowly emerged between the trees, dark shapes under thick blankets of snow. White's pace changed almost imperceptibly when the city came into view. His shoulders loosened. His steps became less careful. He stopped scanning the tree line every few seconds.

Home.

He probably would have hated hearing her call it that. Which was exactly why she planned to do it later.

"Try not to look too excited," she said. "We're almost home."

White glanced back at her, then faced forward again. Candice smiled. Yep. Definitely home. By the time they reached the edge of the city, the storm had driven nearly everyone off the streets. A few bundled figures hurried between buildings with their heads down against the wind. White still drew the occasional look as they passed. Some of it was the hair. Most of it was the fact that everyone else looked dressed for an expedition while White had apparently decided buttons were optional. Candice caught up enough to tug the front of his jacket closed.

White immediately looked down at her hand. "Don't."

"You're going to freeze." She paused, then looked at him properly. "Right. Forgot who I was talking to."

White opened the jacket again.

"Still looks stupid," she added. "Fashion is part of becoming an adult, you know. I'm adding it to the licensing exam. Practical section. Survive one afternoon without dressing like you escaped through your bedroom window."

"I dressed myself."

"Oh, that makes it so much worse."

Poro sneezed loudly.

"Thank you, Poro. Someone in this family has taste."

White looked down at him. "Don't encourage her."

Candice smiled. There was that too. He talked to Poro more than he talked to most people. Probably more than he talked to her, if she was being honest, though she refused to take that personally. Poro had a ten-year head start, or however long the two of them had known each other before the Chasm. Nobody knew for certain. White certainly didn't. The Gym came into view at the end of the road, broad and familiar beneath the snow. Candice had barely made it through the gate before the front doors flew open.

"Oh, no."

White stopped. A small green blur came hurtling down the steps.

"Snover!"

White had just enough time to brace himself before Snover launched into his chest. He caught the Pokémon automatically, though the impact still forced him back half a step. Snover wrapped both arms around his neck and immediately began making enough noise to suggest White had returned from a six-month expedition rather than a morning training session.

White stared at him. "I was gone three hours."

"Sno!"

"Three."

"Snover."

"That's not longer."

Candice leaned in over her mug. "He's been camped at those doors since you left, you know. Up on his feet every ten minutes, wanting to know where his big brother had gone."

White looked at her.

"His words," Candice said. "Not mine."

Poro climbed onto the steps and began protesting, which only encouraged Snover to stretch one arm downward while still clinging to White's neck.

"Careful," Candice said. "He's very emotionally fragile after his devastating defeat this morning. Be gentle with him."

White looked at her. Snover gasped and turned toward him.

White's eyes narrowed. "Don't."

Snover patted his cheek. Candice lost it.

White closed his eyes. "This is your fault."

"Most good things are."

Snover nodded enthusiastically. White shifted him under one arm and started toward the doors, while Candice followed behind. Outside, beside the Gym's eastern wall, Abomasnow stood almost indistinguishable from the snow-covered trees around him. Only his eyes moved as White passed.

White stopped and looked from Abomasnow to Snover, then back again. "Yours."

Abomasnow stared.

"Take him."

Abomasnow turned his head away. White waited. Nothing.

Candice walked past them, entirely unhelpful. "Looks like he trusts you."

White followed. "Lazy."

Abomasnow rumbled behind them.

White looked back. "I heard that."

Candice grinned. The Gym was louder inside. It always was. Someone was shouting from the main battlefield. A whistle blew. Something heavy struck ice hard enough to send a vibration through the floor. Several younger trainers hurried down a side hall carrying cones and training markers while arguing over whose turn it was to clean the practice field. Then came another impact. The wall shook. Candice stopped.

White looked toward the sound. "Glalie?"

"Probably."

Another crash.

Candice winced. "Definitely."

White handed Snover to her. She immediately handed Snover back.

"No."

"You're the Gym Leader."

"Exactly. Delegation. It's a leadership skill. You'll learn it."

White stared at her.

"Also, Snover likes you better. I've made my peace with it."

Snover hugged White tighter.

White looked down at him. "Traitor."

They crossed the main hall as a couple of younger Gym trainers waved.

"Morning, White!"

White gave a small nod.

One of them glanced at Poro's scuffed fur. "Weavile get you two again?"

Candice answered before White could. "Emotionally, yes."

White stopped. The trainer laughed.

Candice continued walking without breaking stride. "He lost very bravely. There was a moment near the end that was almost inspiring."

"Candice."

"See? He's taking it well."

White resumed walking. Good. He was talking again. That had become one of Candice's favorite games over the years. Poke White until he finally decided silence was no longer sufficient. She usually won.

The kitchen sat toward the rear of the Gym, technically part of the private residential section and practically accessible to half the building because Candice had never been very good at enforcing boundaries. By the time they entered, several members of her team had already claimed their usual places. Glaceon lay beneath the table with its eyes half closed and its tail curled around its paws. Galarian Mr. Mime stood near the counter, tapping one foot against the tile in a complicated rhythm that probably meant something to him and nobody else. Froslass floated beside the window, staring out into the storm.

The moment White stepped inside, Froslass turned. Candice noticed because she always noticed. The Pokémon drifted away from the window and crossed the room without making a sound. White did not even look up until she was directly in front of him. Froslass raised one hand and pressed her fingers lightly to his forehead.

White blinked. "What?"

Froslass said nothing. She stayed there for several seconds, watching him closely. Candice's smile faded slightly. It had started years ago. Not immediately, and not during those first few months in Snowpoint. Later, once Froslass had spent enough time around him to notice whatever it was that Candice herself couldn't. Sometimes she would follow White from room to room without explanation. Sometimes she stared at him when the temperature around him dropped. Once, when he had woken from a nightmare and frozen half the water in the glass beside his bed, Candice had found Froslass sitting silently outside his door.

White had stopped thinking it was strange. Candice hadn't. Froslass finally pulled away and drifted back toward the window. White watched her go, then glanced at Candice.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

"I'm allowed."

"Why?"

Candice pulled off her gloves. "My house."

"Gym."

"My Gym."

"League property."

Candice pointed at him with one glove. "Do not get technical with me before breakfast. That's a rule now. I'm writing it down."

Mr. Mime tapped twice. Candice tapped twice against the counter. White froze. Mr. Mime tapped three times. Candice answered with four.

White's expression flattened. "No."

Candice looked at him with an innocence that would not have fooled anyone in the building as Mr. Mime started moving his feet.

"No."

Poro joined in. White looked down at him. Poro kept tapping. Snover began bouncing in White's arms. Candice started laughing before the dance had even properly begun.

"You all deserve each other," White muttered.

Candice heard him. She always did. There were mornings when she still found herself watching him and remembering the hospital bed. White hair too long around a face drained of color. Hands clutching Poro like letting go would make the rest of the world disappear. The boy who had asked if he could come with her because he had nowhere else to go. Now he stood in her kitchen with Snover hanging from his neck, Poro tapping at his feet, Mr. Mime trying to make him dance, and Froslass hovering nearby like an overly suspicious ghost. White looked completely surrounded.

He also looked completely at ease. He didn't know how rare that expression was. Candice did. She turned toward the counter before he caught her staring again.

Tomorrow he would be fifteen. Candice had bought him a cake every year for a date she had invented, and every year he had pretended not to want one, and this year the cake was not the part she kept circling back to. Fifteen meant the licensing exam. The exam meant the license, and the license meant White could walk out through Snowpoint's gates without needing her permission and simply keep going. Candice had spent five years preparing him for exactly that. She had taught him to battle, navigate, handle first aid, care for Pokémon, understand League law, camp, and cook—though his definition of cooking remained criminally generous. She had spent five years making sure he would be fine without her. It had seemed like a much better plan when without her was still years away. Something tugged at her sleeve. Candice looked down.

Snover had somehow escaped White and was now attempting to climb her leg.

"Hey."

Snover kept climbing. White walked past her toward the table.

Candice pointed after him. "Your big brother abandoned you."

White stopped, and Snover went still as though even he understood Candice had made a mistake. Candice smiled.

After a moment, White slowly looked back at her. "Really?"

"What? Look at him."

Snover looked between them. White sighed and held out his arms. Snover immediately launched himself back at him. Candice watched White catch him.

Again.

Automatically.

Like he'd been doing it his entire life. Maybe he hadn't been born here. Maybe Snowpoint wasn't where his story started. Candice was beginning to think that mattered less than it used to.

"Put him down before he gets spoiled," she said.

White looked at Snover, then at her. "Too late."

Candice grinned. "See? That's my influence."

White sat at the table. "Unfortunately."

There it was. Candice laughed and reached for the breakfast plates.

---

White POV

Breakfast was louder than necessary, which White had long since accepted was unavoidable.

Candice talked while she cooked, Galarian Mr. Mime tapped whenever the conversation became insufficiently interesting, Snover objected whenever anyone attempted to prevent him from climbing onto the table, and Poro had developed the unfortunate habit of encouraging all three. Glaceon remained beneath the table with her tail curled neatly around her paws, apparently the only other creature in the room who understood the value of silence. White sat down and pulled Snover from his shoulder, only for the Pokémon to immediately climb into the chair beside him. Poro looked offended by this arrangement despite occupying nearly half of White's own chair already, and when White pointed toward the empty seat on his other side, neither Pokémon moved.

He gave up. Candice set a plate in front of him. Eggs, toast, sliced berries, and something brown that White suspected had once been sausage. He stared at it long enough for Candice to notice.

"Don't."

White poked it with his fork. It bent.

"Eat it."

He looked at her.

"It's sausage. It's supposed to do that."

Another look.

Candice planted both hands on the counter. "Do you want breakfast or not?"

White glanced down. Poro had already stolen half his toast.

"Apparently not."

Candice followed his gaze. "Poro."

The Cubchoo froze with the toast hanging from his mouth.

"Give it back."

Poro slowly returned it to White's plate. White looked at the wet bite marks, then pushed it back toward him.

"Keep it."

"You're both hopeless. I cook for nobody."

Snover reached for the sausage. White caught his paw without looking. Snover tried the other one. White caught that too. Across the room, Mr. Mime tapped twice in what sounded suspiciously like applause.

White looked toward him. "Don't."

Mr. Mime immediately began tapping faster. Candice laughed and finally sat across from him. She was unusually energetic, even for Candice, which White had learned was often a warning. When she had something planned, she smiled more, talked more, and became noticeably worse at pretending nothing was happening. White ate and waited. Candice lasted thirty-eight seconds.

"You're not going to ask?"

White swallowed. "Ask what?"

She frowned. White went back to his eggs.

"You know exactly what."

"No."

"White."

He glanced at her.

Candice leaned forward across the table, both elbows planted. "Tomorrow."

He waited.

"Your birthday."

"I know."

"Your fifteenth birthday."

"I know."

She stared at him as though expecting something more. White took another bite.

Candice sat back and threw up one hand. "You are unbelievably difficult to build anticipation with. Do you understand that? I've been sitting on this since Tuesday. I had a whole thing."

"I knew it was coming."

"That's not the point."

"Then what's the point?"

She opened her mouth, paused, then pointed her fork at him. "The point is that you're supposed to be excited. Visibly. With your face."

White considered that. "I am."

"You look exactly the same."

"I usually do."

Candice squinted at him. "That's irritatingly true."

White let her have that one. For a long time he had told her the date was arbitrary, mostly because it was, and he had gone on telling her every year until at some point he had stopped. He could not remember deciding to. Candice reached beneath the table. White watched her.

She noticed. "What?"

He kept watching.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"You have something."

"I have lots of things. I'm a very complex woman."

White said nothing.

Candice sighed. "Fine."

A thick packet landed beside his plate. White looked down at it, then at her, then back at the papers. The Sinnoh League emblem was printed across the first page above several lines of block lettering.

APPLICATION FOR STANDARD INDEPENDENT TRAINER LICENSURE

White stopped chewing.

Candice smiled. "There it is."

He looked at her.

"The excitement."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"You stopped eating. That's practically a parade."

White looked back at the packet. It was thicker than he remembered.

"All of this?"

"Every beautiful, government-approved page."

"Why?"

"Because the Sinnoh League apparently loves forests but hates trees."

White flipped through several sheets. Personal information, medical declarations, Pokémon ownership records, emergency contacts, travel acknowledgements, liability agreements, and page after page of regulations Candice had been forcing him to memorize for years.

He looked at her. "How much?"

"All of it."

White closed the packet.

Candice laughed and reached over to flip it back open. "Absolutely not. You've spent five years complaining about the age requirement. You are not escaping now because there are too many boxes."

"I was thinking."

"One of your favorite sulking words."

White reopened the packet. For years he had known what turning fifteen meant. Trainers younger than that could own Pokémon, battle, participate in supervised League events, and travel within approved local areas. White had done all of those things. He had trained at the Gym, accompanied Candice on expeditions, camped throughout the northern routes, and spent enough time around professional trainers that ordinary Pokémon care had become second nature. Independent travel was different. For that, Sinnoh required a standard Trainer License. Fifteen was the minimum age. Tomorrow, that restriction disappeared. Assuming he passed. White picked up a pen.

The first box was simple.

Legal Name.

He wrote:

White.

The pen moved without hesitation. Years ago, the name had felt temporary, something chosen because doctors kept asking what they should call him and he had nothing else to offer. For a long time, White had assumed another name would eventually return with his memories, something familiar enough to make this one unnecessary. It never had. At some point, he had stopped waiting for it. White was his name. He moved on.

Date of Birth.

White wrote tomorrow's date. Candice leaned across the table. He looked up.

"I'm supervising."

"Why?"

"Guardian responsibility."

"You're reading upside down."

"I'm talented."

White returned to the form.

Place of Birth.

His pen stopped. Candice stopped talking. White stared at the empty line. He could have written Unova. That was where they had found him, somewhere beneath the Giant Chasm, preserved inside ice that should have killed him. It did not mean he had been born there. There were fragments sometimes, a snow-covered road, buildings he could never bring into focus, someone laughing, a warm hand wrapped around his own. None of it was enough to fill a line on a government form. White lowered the pen.

Unknown.

The word looked small inside the box. He continued. There were questions about citizenship, medical history, previous addresses. Some had answers. Many did not. Officially, most of White's life began five years ago. Everything before that existed in estimates, blank spaces, and documents stamped with variations of insufficient information. He had grown used to it.

Mostly.

Then he reached the next section.

Parent or Legal Guardian.

White wrote Candice's name. No hesitation. The following line asked for an emergency contact. He wrote her name again. Candice's fork stopped against her plate. White looked up. She was staring downward.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You stopped eating."

Candice slowly looked at him. For a moment, her expression did something White could not quite identify, then disappeared.

"Don't use my own tricks against me."

White looked back at the form. "Worked."

Candice pointed her fork at him. "You're getting annoying."

"Your influence."

She stared at him. White continued writing.

After several seconds, Candice smiled. "Okay. That one was pretty good. I'll allow it."

White kept his eyes on the page, ignoring the faint warmth that settled somewhere behind his ribs. A knock echoed through the Gym. Candice straightened immediately. White's pen stopped. There it was. Whatever she had been waiting for. He looked at her. Candice looked away too quickly.

"You invited someone."

"What makes you say that?"

White stared.

"I am always this cheerful."

"No."

Candice placed a hand over her chest. "That hurts. That genuinely hurts."

Another knock came from the front of the Gym. White continued looking at her.

Candice stood. "Finish the page."

"Who?"

"You'll see."

"Candice."

She was already walking away, and White could hear the smile in it. "Finish the page!"

White watched her disappear into the hall. Poro climbed onto the chair beside him and looked after her.

"She planned something."

Poro nodded. Snover raised one paw.

White looked at him. "You don't know."

Snover lowered it. The front doors opened in the distance. Candice's voice followed almost immediately.

"You're early!"

A girl's voice answered, bright enough to carry the length of the corridor. "You said noon."

"I did?"

"You absolutely did. You wrote it down. I have it in writing, Candice, I brought the letter —"

"Oh. Then you're right on time."

"That's — okay. Sure. We'll go with that."

White stared toward the hallway. Poro looked at him.

White lowered his eyes to the application. "Ignore it."

He filled in another line. The voices drew closer. Candice was talking about the storm now, then Professor Rowan, then something about anyone willingly traveling through northern Sinnoh in this weather having either impressive dedication or questionable judgment. The other girl appeared perfectly capable of keeping up with her, and seemed to be enjoying herself considerably more than the weather warranted. White reached the Pokémon registration section.

Primary Pokémon Partner:

He wrote Poro. The Cubchoo leaned over to inspect his work and gave an approving sniff.

Species: Cubchoo.

Then Poro stopped moving. White noticed immediately. His attention had shifted toward the hallway, but it was not the approaching footsteps that held him there. Poro's ears flattened against his head, and whatever amusement had been on his face disappeared.

White lowered his pen. "Poro?"

The Cubchoo did not respond. Something about the air felt different. Not colder. White was used to cold in ways most people weren't, and temperature itself rarely registered strongly enough for him to care. This was something harder to identify. A pressure beneath the sensation, distant but familiar enough to make the back of his neck prickle. Candice appeared in the doorway first.

The girl walking behind her looked around White's age, perhaps slightly older, with dark-blue hair tucked beneath a knitted cap and snow still clinging to the hem of her coat. A heavy satchel marked with Professor Rowan's research insignia crossed her chest, while a Piplup waddled at her side. In her other hand was a silver case. Small, reinforced, and sealed along every edge with dark clasps. White's attention settled on it immediately. Poro took a step backward. Candice noticed. Her smile disappeared. Not when she saw the case. When she saw Poro.

Her eyes moved from him to White, then back to the Cubchoo pressed against White's chair. For the first time since she had walked into the room, Candice stopped talking.

The girl followed her gaze, and the cheerful momentum went out of her all at once. "Oh — is he okay?"

White stood. Poro immediately moved closer to his leg.

"What is that?"

The girl glanced down at the case, already lifting it slightly as though to explain, but Candice answered before she could.

"Something I should've told you about before she got here."

White looked at her.

Candice exhaled softly and rubbed the back of her neck. There was none of her usual exaggerated innocence this time. "Rowan asked me to help with some testing. Dawn's bringing the samples."

White's eyes returned to the case. "Samples."

"From the Chasm."

For a moment, nothing moved. The Gym continued around them. Mr. Mime tapped softly near the counter. Someone shouted from the main battlefield. Wind pushed snow against the kitchen window in faint, dry bursts. White heard ice cracking. Pale yellow eyes. A wall between him and someone running away. Empty. The fragments vanished almost as quickly as they came. White blinked.

Candice had already moved half a step closer. "White?"

"I'm fine."

Her expression made it clear she did not believe him. He ignored it and looked down at Poro instead. The Cubchoo was staring at the silver case with an intensity White had almost never seen from him. Not curiosity.

Fear.

White crouched and rested a hand against his head. "Poro."

Poro finally looked up.

"It's sealed."

The reassurance sounded weak even to White. Poro pressed against his knee. The Piplup beside Dawn tilted her head at the exchange, then waddled curiously toward the case. Poro moved before she reached it, planting himself directly in her path. The Piplup stopped. Poro shook his head. She puffed out her chest and stepped left. Poro moved left. She stepped right. So did he.

Dawn sighed. "Nia."

The Piplup looked back at her.

"Leave it. I mean it — that's not a game."

Nia made an offended sound, but reluctantly stepped away. Poro remained where he was. White watched him. He wasn't playing. Candice saw that too. Her gaze lingered on Poro before she turned back to White.

"Rowan kept a handful of samples after we found you," she said. "Most of the ice melted once you were out, but some of it was preserved before that happened. He's been studying it ever since."

White knew that Rowan had continued investigating Giant Chasm. The professor had visited Snowpoint more than once over the years. White had answered questions, submitted to examinations, allowed blood samples to be taken, and sat through enough explanations about his body temperature that he could probably have delivered one himself. He had never brought any of the ice with him. White had never thought much about it still existing.

His eyes remained on the case. "Why here?"

"Because Rowan wants comparisons he can't get in his lab. Natural cold, different Ice Pokémon, different kinds of Ice-type energy. Abomasnow, Froslass, Glaceon, whatever else he decides belongs on the list. He asked. I agreed."

White looked at her.

Candice held his gaze. "I was going to tell you after breakfast."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you were filling out your forms, and I wanted to explain it properly instead of dropping Giant Chasm research on you between the eggs and whatever terrible thing I did to that sausage."

White glanced toward his plate.

Candice pointed at him. "Not the point."

He looked back at the case.

Candice's voice softened slightly, though it remained characteristically direct. "And because I knew you might not like having it here."

White said nothing.

"Which is why," she continued, "you do not have to be involved in any of Rowan's tests. At all."

"I didn't ask."

"I know."

White looked at her.

Candice folded her arms. "I'm telling you anyway."

Dawn shifted the case slightly farther from the table, careful about it, and cleared her throat. "For what it's worth — Professor Rowan said everything inside is completely stable. Nothing's reacted at all during transport, and I checked. A lot. Probably more than he wanted me to."

Candice nodded. "I know. That's why I agreed to it."

There was no surprise or accusation in her voice, only concentration. Her attention returned briefly to Poro.

"But he's never been around them before."

White understood what she meant. Neither had he. Whatever he had felt when Dawn walked into the room hadn't gone anywhere, and knowing what was inside the case had only made it harder to ignore.

Candice watched him carefully. "If having it here becomes a problem, it goes back. I don't care what Rowan's schedule says."

White knew she meant it.

That was why he shook his head. "It's fine."

Poro looked up at him. White rested a hand between his ears again.

"For now."

Candice studied him for another moment, then nodded. "For now."

Only then did some of the tension leave her shoulders. Dawn looked between them, clearly aware that she had arrived in the middle of something she had not been prepared for. She lowered the case carefully beside the wall, well away from both Poro and Nia, then straightened. Candice seemed to remember that introductions had technically never happened.

"Right," she said, some of her usual energy returning. "We skipped the part where everyone learns each other's names before unpacking pieces of White's childhood trauma."

White looked at her. Dawn stared.

Candice paused. "Too blunt?"

"Yes."

"Noted."

White doubted that very much.

Candice gestured toward the girl. "White, this is Dawn. Rowan's assistant, trusted courier of questionable scientific materials, and apparently one of the few people strange enough to voluntarily come this far north in winter."

"I didn't volunteer for the weather," Dawn said. "Nobody volunteers for the weather. The weather isn't on the form."

"Still came."

"I had a job!"

"Excuses."

Dawn rolled her eyes with her whole head, then brightened and gestured toward the Piplup beside her. "Anyway. Ignore her. This is Nia."

Nia lifted her head proudly. White looked at Dawn. Dawn looked back, and her whole face did something expectant, like she'd been saving this part of the trip for later.

"So you're White."

"Yes."

She waited. White waited. Candice's eyes moved between them. After several seconds, White sat back down and returned to his application.

Dawn blinked. "That's — that's it? That's the whole thing?"

White looked up. "Was there a question?"

Candice made a strangled sound beside her. Dawn stared at him for a moment. Then she laughed. Not politely. Actually laughed, both hands coming up, head tipping back. Candice immediately joined her. White frowned and looked down at Poro, who merely shrugged.

"I don't understand."

"This is going wonderfully," Candice managed.

Dawn removed her coat and draped it across the back of an empty chair, still grinning. "Okay. Okay. Professor Rowan warned me you didn't talk much. He said it like it was a fun fact. Oh, the boy doesn't say much."

White returned to his paperwork.

"He did not mention that getting a full sentence out of you would be a whole athletic event."

"I'm talking."

"Barely. Technically. In the way that a rock technically has a temperature."

"You didn't ask anything."

Dawn opened her mouth, paused, then looked toward Candice with an expression of genuine betrayal.

Candice wiped at one eye. "He's technically right. That's the worst part. That's always the worst part."

"I heard you."

"Good."

Nia wandered closer to Poro again. This time Poro allowed her within a few feet, though he positioned himself firmly between her and the case. Nia noticed immediately and craned her neck to see around him. Poro shook his head. Nia gave him an indignant chirp. White watched the exchange for several seconds. Something about it stayed with him.

Candice pulled out the chair opposite White and sat back down. "Dawn also brought the rest of Rowan's paperwork."

White's pen stopped. His eyes moved toward the research satchel.

Dawn gave him an apologetic smile that did not appear to be even slightly apologetic. "Medical clearance, Rowan's report for the League, a couple of things he needs you to sign. Sorry. I'm just the courier. Don't shoot the courier."

White looked at Candice. She did not need him to finish the question.

"Government," she said, brightening.

White closed his eyes. Dawn laughed again. When he opened them, Candice was smiling at him. Not the exaggerated smile she used when deliberately trying to irritate him. Something quieter. White looked back down at the licensing packet. Tomorrow he would be fifteen. In a few days, if everything went the way Candice clearly expected it to, he would be legally free to leave Snowpoint without her permission. And now, sitting less than ten feet away, was a sealed piece of the place where his old life had ended. White did not know whether the timing meant anything.

He decided he preferred when his biggest problem that morning had been Weavile.

---

Dawn was staying. White discovered this approximately two minutes after deciding her arrival had already been complicated enough.

Candice explained it while helping herself to the rest of his berries. Rowan's testing would take several days, the samples had to remain under controlled conditions, and apparently sending Dawn back through the storm immediately after she arrived would qualify as "inhospitable."

White suspected Candice had added that last part herself.

"So she's staying here."

Candice looked at him. "That's generally what staying means."

White glanced toward Dawn. She had taken the chair across from him and was reading through one of Rowan's instruction sheets while Nia stood beside her, still periodically looking toward the silver case. Poro had returned to White's side but remained more alert than usual, his eyes drifting toward the case whenever the room became quiet.

Dawn looked up. "Is that a problem?"

White considered the question.

"No."

Candice snorted.

Dawn looked toward her. "What?"

"Nothing."

White stared at Candice. She smiled sweetly. He returned to the application.

Dawn apparently interpreted silence differently from Candice, because she waited several seconds before leaning forward on her elbows. "You know, you don't sound very convincing."

White kept writing. "I answered."

"Answering isn't the same as convincing. Those are two different skills, and you've only got the one."

White kept writing.

Candice made a pleased sound from the other side of the table. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

White ignored her. For the next several minutes, he tried to finish the remaining sections of the application while Dawn reviewed Rowan's instructions. This became more difficult when Candice began interrupting her with questions, most of which Dawn answered with surprising patience. White learned without wanting to that Rowan expected three days of comparative testing, that Dawn had brought additional monitoring equipment in her larger bag, and that she had been assisting the professor long enough to understand most of the terminology without needing to check the notes. She talked almost as much as Candice. That was unfortunate.

When White finally signed the last page, he set the pen down and pushed the packet toward Candice. She looked at it.

"You're done?"

"Yes."

"Already?"

White looked at her.

Candice flipped through the pages with increasing suspicion. "You know, most people take longer when filling out life-changing government documents."

"Most people talk while doing it."

Dawn looked up from her notes.

Candice pointed at White. "That was aimed at me."

"Yes."

"See? Rude. That's what I live with."

Dawn smiled. "I thought you said he wasn't rude."

"He isn't. This is affection. You'll learn to read it."

White stood.

Candice looked up. "Where are you going?"

"Away."

"Very affectionate."

He ignored her and reached for his plate. Snover had eaten the sausage. White stared at the empty space where it had been. Snover stared back. White slowly looked toward Candice.

She raised both hands. "Don't look at me. That's your little brother. Take it up with him."

White closed his eyes. Behind him, Dawn laughed again. He was beginning to recognize the sound. That concerned him. White carried the plate toward the sink. As he passed the wall, he found himself looking at the silver case again. Nothing about it had changed. The seals remained intact. No frost covered its surface. No sound came from inside. Still, the same faint sensation tugged somewhere beneath his thoughts. Familiar.

Wrong.

Poro noticed him looking and moved closer. White rested one hand on his head.

"Don't."

Poro looked up. White did not know whether he meant don't worry or don't remember. Possibly both. Behind them, Candice was explaining where Dawn could leave her things. Dawn responded with something about not needing much space, and Candice immediately began describing the guest room as though she were selling property. White listened without turning around. A few minutes ago, tomorrow had been the only thing occupying his thoughts: his birthday, the exam, the license, leaving.

Now a stranger was staying in the Gym, carrying pieces of Giant Chasm in a metal box, and Poro was afraid of something White could not remember. White looked down at him. Poro leaned against his leg. White exhaled.

One problem at a time.

---

Dawn POV

Dawn waited until White disappeared down the hallway before spinning back toward Candice. "Okay. Is he always like that?"

Candice was still reading through his licensing application, one elbow resting on the table. "Pretty much."

Dawn glanced toward the hall again. She had been hoping for slightly more than two words. "So is it me, or is it people in general? Because I've been told I'm a lot, but usually it takes longer than five minutes."

"He likes talking fine." Candice paused, reconsidered, then gave a small shrug. "Okay, maybe likes is generous. He just doesn't feel the need to fill every second with noise."

Something about the way she said it made Dawn suspect that particular argument had happened before. She propped her chin on one hand. "And you do?"

Candice looked up from the application. Dawn smiled innocently.

"Careful," Candice said. "You've been here twenty minutes."

"That long? Feels like I've made real progress."

"You're fitting in already."

Dawn laughed and settled back into her chair, tipping it onto two legs before thinking better of it. "I'm just trying to figure him out. That's all. It's a thing I do."

"Don't."

The answer came quickly enough to surprise her. Candice turned another page before adding, "You'll give yourself a headache. Just talk to him normally."

"I tried that."

"And?"

"I got four words. Four. I counted them on the way over here." She held up four fingers for emphasis. "And one of them was yes."

"That's pretty good."

Dawn couldn't tell if she was serious. The slight curve at the corner of Candice's mouth did not help.

"Okay, so what counts as a successful conversation around here? Give me the scoring system."

"Depends." Candice finally set the application down. "If he answers you, you're doing fine. If he volunteers something you didn't ask for, that's real progress. And if he starts making fun of you — congratulations. He probably likes you."

Dawn stared at her. "That's backwards. That is completely backwards."

"Works for him."

She considered that, then looked down the hallway one more time. White suddenly seemed a little less impossible to understand.

"Does he know you tell people this?"

"No."

"Should I keep it that way?"

"Absolutely."

That answer came without hesitation, and Dawn laughed. Her gaze drifted toward the silver case against the wall. The change in her mood was almost immediate. Nia had settled several feet away from it, although settled was probably the wrong word. Every few seconds the Piplup glanced toward the case, then pretended to be interested in something else whenever Dawn caught her. Poro's reaction had been much harder to dismiss.

Dawn leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. "Candice, can I ask something? Has Poro ever been around the samples before? At all?"

Candice followed her gaze toward the case.

"Never." The ease disappeared from her voice. "Rowan's kept every piece of that ice in his lab for five years. That was the first time either of them has been in a room with it since we cut them out of it."

Dawn noticed immediately. "Rowan said they're stable."

"They are."

"You're sure?"

Candice gave her a sidelong look. "If I thought you were sitting next to something dangerous, I probably would've mentioned it before breakfast."

"Probably?"

That brought the faintest smile back. "Definitely. Almost definitely."

Dawn gave her a look, but Candice's attention had already returned to the case.

"The samples aren't what worries me," she said. "Poro is."

Dawn frowned. "You think he recognizes them?"

For a moment Candice didn't answer. She ran her thumb along the edge of White's application, her expression turning thoughtful.

"Poro was there, Dawn."

Dawn opened her mouth, then stopped.

Of course.

She knew that. She had read it. The expedition report had been very clear that a Cubchoo had been recovered from the same formation as White, and Rowan's notes mentioned Poro more than once. Yet somehow the words on the page had never become the Pokémon she'd watched press himself against White's leg when she walked into the room.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"Yeah."

Dawn looked at the silver case again. Poro had been frozen with White. More importantly, Poro remembered being frozen with White. That realization made something unpleasant settle in her stomach.

"I carried it all the way here and I didn't even think about that."

"Neither did I," Candice admitted.

Dawn looked at her.

Candice sighed and leaned back against the counter. "I knew he might notice something. He's always been sensitive to strange Ice-type energy, and I've had five years to imagine how that would go. Sniff the case, get suspicious, refuse to walk past it. Something I could talk him out of." Her eyes moved briefly toward the hallway. "I wasn't expecting that."

Dawn nodded slowly. That made two of them.

After a moment, she glanced at the case again. "For the record, Rowan made very sure those seals weren't coming open."

"Oh, I know."

"Three separate inspections. Three."

Candice gave a quiet snort. "Sounds like him."

"He made me do the last one while he watched. Just — standing there. Over my shoulder."

"Also sounds like him."

Dawn's mouth twisted. "He didn't say anything, either. That's the part that gets me. He didn't correct me once. He just observed."

That got a genuine laugh out of Candice. "Yeah. He does that."

"It's worse than being yelled at."

"Much worse."

Dawn smiled, relieved when some of the tension in the room finally eased. "I checked everything again on the train anyway."

"I figured you did."

There was something simple and unexpectedly reassuring about that answer. Not a joke, not another warning. Just confidence. Candice gathered White's application and stood, carrying it toward the counter before beginning to collect what remained of breakfast. Dawn automatically reached for the nearest plate. Candice took it first.

"I can help."

"You're fine."

"I'm sitting two feet away."

"And doing a great job of it."

Dawn gave her a flat look and reached for another plate. Candice moved that one too, without even looking.

"Okay, are you actually stopping me from helping? Is this happening?"

"I have a system."

"Your system is moving plates away from me."

"It works."

Dawn laughed and finally gave up, holding both hands where Candice could see them. Watching her stack the dishes, she found herself thinking again about the way White had moved around her that morning. There was none of the careful politeness Dawn expected between a teenager and his legal guardian. He complained about her. Candice bothered him deliberately. Neither seemed particularly concerned about offending the other.

"You two really are like siblings, aren't you?"

She hadn't meant for the question to sound as thoughtful as it did. Candice's hands slowed. Only for a moment.

Then she picked up another plate and gave a small smile that Dawn couldn't quite read. "Something like that."

Dawn's first instinct was to ask what that meant. Her second was to notice the change in Candice's face. The second instinct won. For once.

Candice finished stacking the dishes and tucked White's application beneath one arm. "Come on. I'll show you where you're staying before somebody decides I kidnapped Rowan's assistant."

Dawn pushed herself out of the chair, smiling as she pointed out that Rowan did, in fact, know exactly where she was, down to the train she'd taken. Candice seemed unconvinced that this would prevent him from worrying anyway, but she picked up Dawn's research satchel and headed for the hallway before Dawn could argue further. Nia hopped down from her chair and hurried after them, apparently deciding that whatever grievance she had been nursing was no longer important enough to miss exploring the rest of the Gym.

The private side of Snowpoint Gym was nothing like Dawn had expected. She wasn't entirely sure what she had expected, something grander, probably. Candice was a Gym Leader, after all, and Dawn had visited enough League facilities to know how much effort went into maintaining them. The public half of Snowpoint certainly looked the part. Behind it, though, the halls became narrower and quieter, less like a League facility and more like someone's home.

Boots had accumulated beside one doorway in no discernible order. Scarves hung from hooks along the wall, and a pair of gloves had been abandoned on top of a cabinet despite an empty basket sitting directly beneath them. Photographs occupied nearly every stretch of wall that could hold one, some carefully arranged and others squeezed into whatever space had apparently been available when Candice decided they belonged there. Dawn slowed without meaning to, her attention jumping from one to the next.

One picture showed Candice surrounded by younger Gym trainers, everyone half-buried in snow and laughing at something outside the frame. Another had her standing beside Cynthia at what looked like some League event, both of them considerably more dressed up than Dawn was accustomed to seeing either woman. Then she found White.

He couldn't have been much older than ten. He sat beside an enormous Abomasnow with Poro tucked securely in his lap, shoulders stiff beneath a winter coat several sizes too large for him. Candice had leaned into the photograph from behind and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, looking entirely too pleased with herself. White, meanwhile, looked deeply suspicious of the entire concept of photography.

Dawn leaned in until her nose was nearly against the glass. "Oh, he was tiny."

"He was ten," Candice said, doubling back when she noticed what Dawn was looking at.

"Still tiny. Look at the coat. He's drowning in it."

Candice glanced at the photograph, and the amusement in her face softened into something warmer. "That was his first winter here."

Dawn studied White's expression. "You definitely made him take this."

"I didn't make him do anything."

Dawn looked pointedly from her to the photograph, then back again.

Candice folded her arms. "There may have been hot chocolate involved."

"So you bribed him."

"I gave him an incentive."

"That's a bribe with better paperwork."

Candice laughed. Dawn turned back to the picture, still grinning. The oversized coat and uncomfortable posture had caught her attention first, but after another moment she noticed something else. White wasn't looking at the camera. He was looking up at Candice. The realization quieted her.

There were other photographs nearby. White standing several feet away from a group of Gym trainers while everyone else crowded together. White asleep against Abomasnow's side with Poro sprawled across his stomach. White a little older, holding a much smaller Snover while Candice laughed beside him. Dawn looked between them and realized that in each successive picture, White seemed to have moved a little closer to everyone else. Not dramatically. There was no single photograph where everything suddenly changed. He just seemed less apart from them each time.

"You're doing it again."

Dawn glanced over to find Candice watching her. "Doing what?"

"Trying to figure him out."

"I am not." Candice raised an eyebrow, and Dawn lasted perhaps two seconds before conceding with a grin. "Fine. A little. A normal, healthy amount."

"I warned you."

"About the headache, yeah."

Dawn took one last look at the pictures before following her down the hall. The guest room was small but comfortable, with a bed beneath the window, a narrow desk, and a dresser that had clearly been emptied for her. A stack of folded blankets rested at the foot of the bed. Given the temperature outside, Dawn appreciated the gesture, although she wasn't entirely sure whether the sheer number of them was reassuring.

Candice placed the research satchel on the desk and gave her the important parts quickly. The bathroom was two doors down, extra towels were in the cabinet across from it, and the kitchen was apparently fair game whenever Dawn wanted something. Dawn was still committing the directions to memory when Nia climbed onto the bed, bounced experimentally on the mattress, and gave an approving little chirp.

"Oh, I'm so glad it meets your standards," Dawn told her.

Nia turned in a circle and planted herself squarely in the middle of the bed.

Dawn put her hands on her hips. "Absolutely not. You're not getting the whole thing. We've discussed this."

Nia stared back at her.

"We have this argument every single time and you have never once won it."

Candice leaned against the doorway, watching them with obvious amusement. "Looks like she's already decided."

"She always decides. That's the problem." Dawn pointed accusingly at Nia. "And she steals pillows."

Nia objected loudly.

"Both pillows," Dawn added. "She takes both and then acts surprised."

Candice laughed under her breath. "You'll fit in fine."

Dawn wasn't sure what exactly that said about the household, but footsteps approaching from the hallway distracted her before she could ask. Poro appeared first. He stopped outside the room when he noticed Nia sitting on the bed, and Nia immediately straightened, clearly hopeful that this was finally the beginning of whatever friendship she had already decided they were going to have. The two Pokémon stared at each other. Poro looked away. Nia's face fell.

"Oh, don't take it personally," Dawn murmured, crouching to her level. "You're coming on a little strong. It's a family trait."

"Not really."

White appeared behind Poro with Dawn's larger travel bag hanging from one hand.

Dawn straightened up fast. "There it is! I've been standing here trying to remember where I abandoned that."

"You left it near the entrance," White said.

He carried it past her and set it beside the dresser before stepping back. Dawn thanked him, and White gave a small nod as though retrieving a stranger's luggage was hardly worth mentioning. There was something almost strange about how naturally he had done it. At breakfast he'd seemed reluctant to offer more words than absolutely necessary, yet apparently carrying her bag through half the Gym hadn't bothered him at all.

Candice noticed Dawn watching him and smiled. "See? Occasionally useful."

White looked at her. "Occasionally?"

"Don't push your luck."

White held her gaze a moment longer than the joke required. Dawn watched something pass between the two of them that she couldn't read at all, some argument they'd apparently had so many times it had worn down to eye contact. Then White turned and left without another word.

Dawn stared after him. "Is he mad?"

"No." Candice pushed off the doorframe, entirely unbothered. "That's just his face. Come on."

The main Gym was considerably busier than the residential side. Trainers crossed the edges of the arena carrying equipment, and several Pokémon were helping repair the damage from an earlier practice session. Much of the battlefield was still covered in ice, though the center had been shattered badly enough that deep cracks spread from one end to the other. White stepped onto the frozen surface without changing his pace, Poro trailing comfortably behind him. Dawn stopped at the edge.

She wasn't afraid of ice. She had grown up in Sinnoh and had spent enough winters outside to know how to stay on her feet. This particular stretch of ice, however, looked exceptionally determined to test that confidence. Nia apparently disagreed. The Piplup stepped onto the field before Dawn could stop her, and both feet immediately slid in opposite directions. Dawn lunged forward and caught her around the middle before she landed flat on her stomach, earning an indignant squawk as Nia twisted around and pointed accusingly at the floor.

"Yes, obviously. The ice has a personal grudge," Dawn said, setting her upright again. "It's been waiting for you. Couldn't possibly have been the running start."

A few steps away, White had stopped. Dawn caught him watching them.

"Don't."

His expression remained blank. "I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking something. I saw the whole thought."

"No."

She narrowed her eyes, but there was the faintest shift around his mouth before he turned away and continued across the arena. Dawn stared after him. Maybe Candice had been right. There really were signs. She put Nia down more carefully this time and followed, keeping one hand ready in case the Piplup attempted to declare war on the floor again. Candice fell into step beside her, looking far too amused.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Dawn looked at her suspiciously. "Okay, no — you have the exact same nothing face he does. That's terrifying. Which of you started it?"

That earned her a laugh. Ahead of them, White glanced back at the sound before continuing toward the center of the Gym. Dawn watched him for another moment, then smiled to herself. Figuring him out might give her a headache eventually. So far, though, it was kind of fun. White had already moved farther across the Gym by the time Dawn realized he was getting away from her.

"Hey! Hey, wait —"

He glanced back. Dawn grinned and immediately hurried after him, more carefully than she would have liked on the ice but with enough determination that Nia scrambled along beside her trying to keep up. White slowed just enough for her to catch him, which Dawn decided counted as a victory.

She reached his side with a little more satisfaction than the situation probably deserved. "There. Got you."

White looked at her. "I wasn't running."

"Good, because that would have made it embarrassing."

"For you."

Dawn pointed at him, delighted. "See? That. Right there. You're doing it again."

He gave her a questioning look, but she was already smiling. She'd caught another one of those little comments he seemed to slip out when he wasn't paying attention, and for some reason that made catching up with him feel even more successful.

They walked a few steps before Dawn clasped her hands behind her back. "So. I've decided something."

White's expression immediately became wary. That only encouraged her.

"I think we're going to be friends."

He stopped walking. Dawn made it another step before noticing and turned back. White stared at her as though she'd just announced an administrative decision that somehow required no input from him.

"You decided that."

"I'm making a prediction. There's a difference. Predictions are very scientific. Rowan would be proud."

"Based on what?"

The question came so plainly that Dawn blinked. For a moment, she almost gave him the obvious answer: because he was interesting, and every time she thought she had him figured out, he did something that made her reconsider.

Instead, she smiled. "Because I think we'd get along. And because somebody clearly has to teach you how to look less disappointed by the existence of everything."

White stared at her. "I don't."

"You do. A little. Right now, actually. You're doing it about me."

Behind them, Candice laughed.

White looked past Dawn toward her. "You don't get to agree."

"Oh, I absolutely do," Candice called back. "I've been saying it for five years. Somebody finally showed up."

Dawn glanced at Candice's grin, then back at White, spreading her hands. "See? Independent confirmation."

"She's not independent."

"Fine. Biased confirmation."

"Very biased."

"Still counts. It's in the file now."

White started walking again, apparently deciding the conversation was not worth continuing. Dawn immediately fell into step beside him.

"So that's my prediction," she continued.

"What is?"

"Friends. Keep up."

"That's not a plan."

"It can be. I'll make it one, I'm very organized."

White glanced at her. "What does it involve?"

Dawn considered that more seriously than she had the prediction itself, tapping one finger against her chin. "Getting you to talk more, probably. That's step one."

"No."

"Smile more. That's step two."

"No."

"Complain less —"

White looked at her.

Dawn reconsidered immediately. "Actually, no, scratch that. Candice said the complaining counts as progress, so we're keeping it. We'll build on it."

"Good."

She brightened. "See? Look at that. We're already negotiating."

White let out a quiet breath through his nose and kept walking. Dawn wasn't sure if it was a sigh or the beginning of a laugh, but she decided it was close enough.

After a few more steps, he glanced at her again. "What if I don't want to be friends with you?"

Dawn considered him for a second. The question hadn't been unkind. It had just been honest, which was somehow harder to argue with.

"Then I'll stop bothering you," she said. "I mean it. Say the word and I'll go be a delight somewhere else."

That seemed to catch him off guard. She kept walking, letting herself get half a step ahead. Nia hurried after her while Poro stayed comfortably beside White. After a moment, Dawn looked back over her shoulder with a grin.

"But I don't think that's going to happen."

White watched her for a moment, then followed. He still looked unconvinced. Dawn decided she had work to do.

---

White POV

White had known Dawn for less than an hour, and apparently she had already decided they were probably going to be friends. He was reasonably certain that wasn't how friendship worked. As far as he could tell, Dawn had made a prediction, informed him of it, and then acted as though the outcome were already obvious. Worse, Candice had immediately taken her side.

"This is your fault," White said when Candice caught up with him near the edge of the battlefield.

Candice looked far too innocent. "What did I do?"

"You encouraged her."

"I laughed."

"Same thing."

"It really isn't." She bumped his shoulder lightly as she passed, still smiling. "Besides, you could always tell her to leave you alone."

"I did."

"And that went great."

White frowned at her back and decided not to answer. Poro followed him toward one of the benches bordering the arena, though the Cubchoo's attention wandered briefly toward the residential hallway before he settled near White's feet. The silver case was out of sight from here, but White could still feel the memory of its presence sitting unpleasantly at the edge of his awareness. He didn't know what was inside it yet. He only knew that something about it felt wrong, and Poro's reaction had made ignoring that considerably harder.

White reached down and ran his fingers gently between Poro's ears. The Cubchoo leaned into the touch, some of the tension leaving him, though his eyes flicked toward the hallway once more before finally settling on White. Candice had promised that they wouldn't do anything with the samples if he didn't want to. White believed her.

For now, that was enough.

"Ooh. Is that your practice exam?"

Dawn's voice appeared beside him before White noticed that she had followed him all the way to the bench. He looked up to find her already leaning toward the sheet of paper Candice had left there earlier, Nia standing close beside her.

"Was," White said, reaching for it.

Dawn got there first.

She scooped the paper from the bench and turned away from his hand in the same motion, glancing over it before he could stop her. Her eyes immediately found the large 88% Candice had circled twice at the top, and her eyebrows shot up. "Eighty-eight! Okay, that's actually good. That's a solid eighty-eight."

White held out his hand. "Give it back."

"Hold on, hold on." Dawn moved it just far enough away to keep reading, apparently unconcerned by the look he gave her. "You crushed the safety sections. Wilderness procedures too, look at that, straight through." Her eyes traveled farther down the page and she made a small, sympathetic noise. "Oh, and then the administrative stuff absolutely destroyed you."

"They're pointless."

"They're definitely not pointless." Dawn paused, tilting her head. "Okay. Some of them are a little pointless. Question twenty-two is a war crime."

White held his hand out again until she finally surrendered the paper. He had just started folding it when she dropped onto the bench beside him and added, almost casually, "I took that one, you know."

That stopped him. "You did?"

"Rowan made me take the whole standardized set before he'd send me anywhere interesting." She gave a little shrug, then smiled with her entire face. "I got a ninety-six."

White looked at her. Then at the eighty-eight on his paper. Then back at her. A very small sound came from Candice's direction.

White didn't bother looking over. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

"I was thinking it very loudly."

Dawn glanced between them, clearly missing something. "What? What's happening?"

"Nothing," White said.

"He's competitive," Candice supplied.

White finally looked at her. "I'm not."

Candice laughed. Dawn's expression brightened immediately, which was exactly the opposite reaction White wanted.

"Wait, really?" she asked.

"No."

"Very," Candice said.

White ignored both of them and unfolded the paper again. "What did you miss?"

Dawn's smile became suspiciously pleased. "Four questions."

"I know how percentages work."

That made her laugh out loud. "Okay, fair. One regulation question, two medical, and one reporting question. And the reporting one was badly written, which I'm still bitter about."

"Question seventeen?"

Her expression changed just enough. White noticed.

"You missed seventeen."

Dawn narrowed her eyes at him. "So did you."

"I didn't say I didn't."

"Then you can't judge me."

"I can judge the ninety-six."

"For being higher than your eighty-eight? That's the crime? That's what we're doing?"

Candice laughed again, and White decided he disliked the direction the morning had taken.

Dawn leaned over the practice test before he could put it away, close enough that Nia had to relocate. "Okay, but what else did you miss? Come on."

"Nothing important."

"That's usually what people say when they don't want to show someone what they missed."

White moved the paper away from her. Dawn followed it with her eyes, still smiling, and after several seconds of silence she simply held out her hand, palm up, and waited.

"Give me that."

"No."

"I'll quiz you."

"No."

"Come on. I'm good at it. Rowan says I'm insufferable about it, which from him is a rave review."

"No."

Dawn turned in her seat. "Candice. Can I?"

Candice's response was immediate. "Absolutely."

White stared at her.

"What?" Candice asked. "Educational enrichment."

He hated when she called things that. The test ended up in Dawn's hands anyway. White wasn't entirely sure when he'd lost control of the situation, only that Dawn was suddenly sitting beside him with the paper balanced across one knee while Candice leaned comfortably against the railing nearby, making no effort whatsoever to hide how entertained she was.

Dawn started with an easy one, clearing her throat first like she was addressing a room. "Right. A Trainer encounters an injured wild Pokémon within a League-maintained route, but it reacts aggressively when approached. What's the appropriate first response?"

"Maintain distance, move other people away if necessary, contact the nearest Ranger station or Pokémon Center, and don't attempt treatment unless it's safe to approach."

Dawn checked the answer, and some of the confidence disappeared from her smile. "...Correct."

White looked at her.

"Don't look so pleased."

"I'm not."

"You are. A little. Around the eyes."

She gave him another. Then another. White had no trouble with the practical questions. Pokémon care, wilderness safety, battle restrictions, exposure treatment, emergency procedures. Those had reasons behind them. They were things a trainer might actually need when something went wrong. The administrative questions were worse. Dawn, unfortunately, seemed to know all of them.

"Six hours," she corrected after his latest answer.

"Twenty-four."

"Six."

"Why?"

"Because that's the rule."

"That's not a reason."

Dawn laughed and tapped the answer with one finger. "It is if your goal is getting the question right. That's the whole trick with this section. Stop asking it to make sense."

White stared at her. She smiled back, entirely unbothered. Candice had stopped pretending to do anything else. Dawn continued until she reached a question about property damage during an independent battle. White read the answers twice, hesitated, and immediately regretted it when her expression changed.

"You don't know."

"I know."

"You've been looking at it for ten seconds."

"I'm thinking."

"Very intensely. You've got a whole face happening."

White looked up. "You talk a lot."

Dawn didn't seem offended in the slightest. If anything, she looked delighted, like he'd handed her something. "Yeah, that's part of the deal. I did warn you. That was the warning."

"I want to cancel."

"Denied. No refunds."

Candice laughed into one hand. White looked from Dawn to Candice and briefly wondered whether putting the two of them in the same building had been an avoidable mistake. He answered the next question correctly. Dawn found another one, this time involving the reporting procedure for damage during a Gym-sanctioned exhibition, and frowned very seriously at the answer sheet.

"Form Seven," she said.

"There aren't seven forms."

"There are."

White looked at her suspiciously. Dawn managed to keep a straight face for another second before breaking into a grin so wide it collapsed the whole performance.

"You made that up."

"I wanted to see if you'd believe me!"

"You cheated."

"This isn't a test."

"You're holding a test."

"That doesn't make it a test. Those are two different things, White, honestly, and you're the one who wants a license."

White reached for the paper. Dawn pulled it away before he could take it, laughing as she shifted farther down the bench and held it triumphantly over the far side. He stopped reaching. She noticed. The grin remained on her face for a moment before something thoughtful replaced it. Her eyes moved from him to Poro, then to Nia, who had wandered closer during the quiz and was now watching the Cubchoo with obvious interest. White recognized the expression on Dawn's face. She was deciding something again. Apparently once that started, there was very little anyone could do about it.

"We should battle."

White blinked. "What?"

Dawn sat up straighter, already looking increasingly enthusiastic about her own idea. "You and me. Poro and Nia. Right now."

"Why?"

"Because I want to see how you battle when the other trainer isn't Candice." Her smile widened. "Also, friends battle. It's a whole thing."

"That's not a rule."

"It can be."

"We're not friends."

"Working on it. Getting there."

White glanced toward Candice for support and immediately regretted it. She looked delighted.

Dawn followed his gaze and grinned. "Come on. One battle. It'll be fun, and you can pretend you're only doing it to make me stop talking." She nodded toward the arena behind them. "Besides, this is your Gym. Home-field advantage. I'm basically handing you the win."

White's eyes drifted toward the battlefield despite himself. Snow and fractured ice still covered much of the arena. The earlier practice sessions had left raised ridges along one side, shallow depressions where sections had broken away, and uneven stretches where the ice had partially refrozen. It wasn't a clean field. That made it more useful. Poro stood beside him. Across the bench, Nia noticed and immediately puffed out her chest.

Dawn pointed between them. "See? They want to. Look at them. It's already happening without us."

White looked down at Poro. "Do you?"

Poro's attention remained fixed on Nia for another moment before he nodded.

Dawn brightened immediately. "There. Settled. Democracy."

"It's my battle too."

"Right. Right, sorry." She turned toward him, barely containing her smile. "White. Would you like to battle me?"

White could have said no. There was no reason he needed to prove anything. Dawn's ninety-six had nothing to do with him, and beating her in a Pokémon battle would not somehow change his practice-test score. More importantly, agreeing would almost certainly encourage this entire friendship campaign she had apparently decided to undertake. He looked at Dawn. She was waiting, practically vibrating with it. Then he looked at the ninety-six she had written neatly in the margin beside his circled eighty-eight while explaining one of the questions. White folded the paper.

"Fine."

Dawn shot to her feet with a triumphant "Yes!" before White had fully finished the word, both fists coming up. Nia answered with an equally enthusiastic chirp and hurried after her as Dawn made for the opposite side of the arena.

"Try not to look too excited," Dawn called back.

"I said fine."

"And from you that's basically a standing ovation."

From the sideline came a small, delighted noise. Candice had used almost exactly those words that morning. White chose not to look at her.

Candice pushed away from the railing and stepped toward the center of the battlefield. "I'll referee."

White narrowed his eyes at her. "You were waiting for this."

"I've been waiting since she said ninety-six."

Of course she had. White stepped onto the ice with Poro beside him. Across the field, Dawn was still smiling as she took her place behind Nia, bouncing lightly on her toes with the same restless energy as her Pokémon. She looked far too pleased about all of this. White looked down at Poro. Poro looked back.

"Let's win," White said quietly.

Poro's attention snapped toward Nia. White faced Dawn again. Whatever she had decided they were, he hadn't agreed to it yet. But a battle was simpler. That, he understood.

---

Candice gave them only a few minutes to take their positions before stepping to the edge of the arena. The battlefield still carried the damage from the morning's training, and nobody had bothered returning it to anything resembling neutral ground. Sheets of old ice overlapped beneath a thin covering of snow, shallow channels crossed the center where damaged sections had been chipped away, and fractured ridges rose along the eastern side. Near the northern wall, one of the training barriers had been broken down until little remained except a thick shelf of compacted ice and snow. It was uneven, messy, and full of things that would have been cleared away before an official match.

White preferred it that way. Poro stood several paces ahead of him, testing the ground beneath one paw before looking back. White met his eyes and gave a small nod. Across the field, Dawn crouched beside Nia and whispered something that made the Piplup straighten immediately, chest puffing out as she turned toward Poro. When Dawn rose again, she was still smiling, but there was a sharper focus beneath it now.

"You ready?" she called.

White nodded.

Dawn waited for more, then threw up her hands. "Nothing? Not even a yes? Okay. Fine. I'm getting a real answer out of you before I leave this city, I want that on record."

White said nothing.

"See? Exactly that. That's the thing I'm talking about."

Candice laughed from the sideline before raising one hand. "One Pokémon each. Battle ends when either Pokémon can't continue or either trainer concedes. No move restrictions. Keep anything particularly destructive inside the marked arena, and both of you are helping repair whatever you break."

Dawn glanced around at the already scarred battlefield, then back at her. "Okay, but how are we supposed to know which damage is ours? Half of this was here when I walked in."

"I'll know."

White believed her.

Candice dropped her hand. "Begin."

Dawn moved first.

"Nia, Bubble Beam!"

The attack came fast enough that White barely had time to react. A concentrated stream of bubbles tore across the field and caught Poro along the side before he could fully move away, lifting the smaller Pokémon from his feet and sending him skidding across the ice.

"Yes! Nia, close in — Peck!"

The Piplup was already moving.

"Poro, Powder Snow."

A dense cloud erupted between them, swallowing Poro from sight and rolling halfway across the center of the arena. White expected Dawn to hesitate. She didn't.

"Straight through!"

Nia disappeared into the white. A heartbeat later she burst from the other side almost on top of Poro and drove her beak into his shoulder. Poro stumbled, but Dawn gave him no room to recover.

"Fury Attack, keep going!"

The first thrust missed when Poro twisted aside. The next caught him high along the chest, the third struck his foreleg, and the fourth drove him another step backward before White finally found an opening.

"Fury Swipes."

Poro surged forward rather than retreating. His claws caught Nia across the chest and then the side, forcing the Piplup off balance, but she ducked beneath the next swipe and slammed a flipper into him with Pound. Poro hit the ice hard enough to bounce before sliding several feet on his back.

"Good! Keep on him!"

White's fingers tightened slightly at his side. He had expected Dawn to be quick. He hadn't expected her to be relentless.

"Poro, Growl."

The low sound rolled over the arena as Nia approached, making her hesitate and lowering the force behind her advance. It bought Poro enough time to get back onto his feet, but barely.

"Bubble — spread it out!"

Nia filled the space ahead of her with dozens of smaller bubbles. Some floated directly toward Poro while others descended around him, bursting against the ground and scattering water over the frozen surface. Poro swatted one aside, ducked beneath another, then took a third against his cheek. Dawn was already pointing forward.

"Pound!"

"Endure."

Poro braced. Nia hit him squarely. His paws left the ground for an instant before slamming back down. His legs buckled, but Endure held and he forced himself upright.

Dawn's arm dropped, and she laughed under her breath despite herself. "Okay. Okay, you're tough, Poro. I see you."

Poro shook the water from his face and glared at Nia. White looked across the arena instead. Water from Bubble now streaked the ice in several places. Powder Snow drifted slowly back toward the ground. Nia remained almost untouched while Poro was already breathing harder than he should have been this early.

"Nia, Peck!"

"Poro, right."

Poro tried. His injured leg slowed the first step. Peck caught him cleanly. He went down again.

This time Dawn stopped the follow-up herself. "Nia, hold."

The Piplup halted. For one second Poro didn't move. White stepped forward before catching himself.

"Poro."

A paw shifted against the snow. Then another. Slowly, the Cubchoo pushed himself upright. His breathing was ragged now.

Dawn's expression had lost all of its earlier excitement. "Hey — is he okay? Seriously. We can stop."

White looked at Poro. Poro lowered himself into position again.

"He's fine."

Candice watched from the boundary without interfering. Dawn was winning, and there really wasn't a kinder way to describe it. Nia was faster, more mobile, and Dawn seemed instinctively unwilling to let her opponent establish a rhythm. Every time Poro recovered from one attack, another was already coming. White wasn't handling that part particularly well. He was, however, watching everything. Candice noticed his eyes settle briefly on the water scattered across the field. She knew what came next before he spoke.

"Nia, Bubble Beam!"

"Poro, Icy Wind. Low."

The stream struck Poro across one shoulder as his own attack swept beneath it. Freezing air raced over the floor, catching the water Nia had left behind. Wet streaks flashed white. Thin plates of new ice spread between patches of older frost, smooth enough to shine beneath the Gym lights. Nia pursued anyway.

"Fury Attack!"

Her first foot hit one of the new patches and slipped sideways.

"Short steps!" Dawn called instantly. "Stay low, don't fight it!"

Nia adjusted almost without losing momentum. Candice smiled faintly. White would hate that. He did.

"Poro, Powder Snow. Wide."

Instead of aiming for Nia, Poro swept the attack from side to side. Snow spilled over the newly frozen patches until the difference between old, rough ice and the fresh slick surface became difficult to see. Dawn answered without much hesitation.

"Nia, Water Sport!"

Water scattered around the Piplup, soaking the loose powder and exposing darker sections of ground beneath it. Nia chirped triumphantly as the snow immediately around her collapsed into slush, and Dawn punched the air. "That's it! Now we can see the floor!"

White looked at the water. Candice's smile widened.

"Poro. Icy Wind."

The freezing gust rolled over the field. Dawn's face changed. Water Sport froze around Nia in a broad sheet. Her feet slid out from beneath her, and she dropped one flipper to the ice to catch herself.

"Don't rush!" Dawn called. "Short steps again — we've done this!"

Nia adjusted, lowering her center of gravity and beginning to move more carefully. White watched every step. Candice watched White. She had seen the moment his battle changed. There was nothing surprising about it. If anything, she would have been disappointed if he hadn't started doing this by now. This was the lesson she'd spent years trying to bury deeply enough that he wouldn't have to consciously remember it. The first time White had truly understood it, though, there hadn't been a lecture. There had been Abomasnow.

White had been younger then, still small enough that Poro could curl comfortably in his lap. He had spent weeks asking why she used attacks that didn't seem to accomplish anything, why Abomasnow ignored openings that looked obvious, why she seemed almost as interested in the ground as she was in the Pokémon standing on it. Candice had answered most of it badly. Nobody had ever explained it to her either. So when the challenge came through, she put him in the front row of the stands with Poro in his arms and told him only to watch.

An Ace Trainer out of Veilstone. Seven badges, and he wore them where people could see them. He had come north with a Magmortar that had reportedly ended two Gym battles inside four minutes each, and he had the easy manner of someone who considered Snowpoint an errand on the way to the eighth. Candice had liked him. She also remembered the way he looked at her arena when he walked in, which was the way nearly all of them looked at it.

Like a floor.

It went to his last Pokémon. Abomasnow stepped onto the ice. Then Snow Warning awakened.

The temperature dropped so quickly White's breath appeared in front of him. Cloud gathered beneath the Gym's high ceiling as though dragged there by force. Wind came off the walls hard enough to rattle the boundary markers, carrying snow sideways until the far end of the arena vanished behind white. Within seconds the building had its own weather. Half the stands stopped talking at once. White had stared. Candice remembered that part particularly well. He almost never reacted openly to anything in those days. But he had stared. Abomasnow raised both arms. The battlefield changed.

Ice raced outward from his feet in branching lines, crawling over the frozen surface and up the base of the northern wall. One ridge rose, then another, slabs grinding upward until they formed waist-high barriers across what had been open ground only moments before. Abomasnow dragged one arm sideways and a wall erupted along the western boundary, dense enough to turn the wind back on itself. Snow struck it, curled upward, and poured across the arena in a new direction. Then he stamped. The center of the battlefield split.

A jagged trench opened through the ice, its edges climbing into uneven shelves. Magmortar burned it clear. Fire tore a channel straight through one of the ridges, steam boiling off the arena in a wave that reached the second row of seats, and for a moment the crowd made the sound crowds make when they think they've seen the answer. Candice had not moved. Abomasnow built another wall two meters behind the first.

Magmortar attempted to circle. Abomasnow swept an arm upward and pulled a new ridge from the frozen ground. The route disappeared. Magmortar turned again. Another wall.

Again.

Another. Abomasnow wasn't chasing it. He was deciding where it was allowed to go. All the while the blizzard continued. Snow swallowed sightlines, and Fire attacks that needed a clear line found ice, or wall, or nothing at all. Wind tore through the channels Abomasnow had deliberately left open, accelerating between the barriers until those routes became miserable to cross, and every one of them led somewhere Candice had already decided. Other sections fell strangely calm behind the ridges, pockets of shelter that looked accidental until Candice sent Abomasnow through one without breaking stride. The storm belonged to him. The ground belonged to him. By the end, the Ace Trainer wasn't battling an Abomasnow anymore.

He was battling Abomasnow, the blizzard, the ice beneath his Pokémon's feet, the walls around it, and every route that had closed before it arrived. Magmortar went down somewhere in the white, and the referee had to walk out into the snow to confirm it. The Ace Trainer shook her hand afterward and asked, with real bewilderment, when exactly he had lost. Candice hadn't been able to give him a moment. There wasn't one. That was the whole point.

The Gym emptied. White was still sitting in the front row with Poro asleep against his chest, looking at the ruined battlefield. Candice climbed the barrier, sat down beside him, and pointed at it.

"Most trainers look at that and see where the Pokémon fight."

White hadn't taken his eyes off Abomasnow. Candice smiled.

"You're an Ice trainer. It's another weapon."

He had been quiet for a while before asking, "Why?"

So she'd explained. Ice-types had weaknesses. Too many to pretend otherwise. Fire. Fighting. Rock. Steel. The man who had just walked out of her Gym had seven badges and better type coverage than she did, and on a clean, flat, well-lit field he would probably have beaten her. If an Ice specialist agreed to stand on ground like that and trade attacks under conditions the opponent liked, they were giving away part of their advantage before the battle even began. But everyone was uncomfortable in the cold. They weren't. So make the opponent uncomfortable.

Make them watch their footing. Make them squint through snow. Make them worry about walls, wind, visibility, and which paths remained open. Force them to spend attention on the environment while an Ice Pokémon moved through it as naturally as if nothing had changed. White had looked back toward the maze Abomasnow had created. Candice remembered the tiny shift in his expression.

Wonder.

That had been enough. Now, years later, Candice watched Poro freeze Dawn's Water Sport across the arena and felt the same quiet pride she'd felt the first time White started trying to recreate Abomasnow's ridges with a Cubchoo barely capable of freezing a puddle. The scale was different. The lesson wasn't. White was making the battlefield matter. Dawn simply intended to keep beating him before it mattered enough.

"Bubble — ground first!"

Nia swept the attack across the snow in front of her. The bubbles burst low, scattering loose powder and exposing the surface beneath. Once a path appeared, Dawn sent her through it.

"Peck!"

Poro barely twisted away.

"Fury Attack!"

Two strikes landed before Poro could retaliate with Fury Swipes. His claws caught Nia once, but Pound struck him across the jaw and sent him spinning toward the eastern ridges. White's jaw tightened. Nia still looked tired rather than hurt. Poro looked hurt. There was a difference.

"Brine."

Poro answered immediately. A surge of water crossed the field. Nia dodged left and the attack passed harmlessly beside her, crashing instead against the old training shelf near the eastern wall.

"Peck!"

Poro took it. He slid until he was only a few steps from the broken shelf.

Dawn pointed forward. "Bubble Beam!"

"Endure."

The attack hit him directly. Poro's entire body shook beneath the impact. For an instant his legs collapsed beneath him, but he forced them straight again.

"Nia, wait. Wait."

Dawn's voice had changed. White didn't look at her.

"Poro."

The Cubchoo's chest rose and fell rapidly.

White lowered his voice. "Still want to?"

Poro raised his head. A low growl came from his throat. White nodded once.

"Okay."

Behind Poro, Brine ran down the frozen face of the training shelf. White looked up. Candice followed his gaze.

Of course.

She knew what he was thinking now. He had watched Abomasnow do this too. Not this exact shape. Not with these exact moves. That wasn't the point. Use what the field gave you.

"Poro. Icy Wind. High."

The gust struck the wet shelf. Ice spread upward across its face and collected beneath the existing ledge. Dawn was already calling Nia forward again.

"Water Sport!"

Fresh water scattered over the center.

"Poro, Powder Snow."

The snow concealed it.

"Bubble, clear us a path!"

Nia stripped a route through the powder and charged through it. White let her.

"Fury Attack!"

Poro blocked one strike with Slash but took the next along his shoulder. He retaliated with Fury Swipes, landing twice before Nia drove him away with Pound. Both Pokémon stumbled apart.

"Nia, Bubble Beam!"

"Poro, Bide."

Poro stopped retreating. Bubble Beam struck. Then Pound. Then Peck. White let all three land. Dawn's confidence faded with each one.

"White. White, he's not moving—"

He didn't answer. Poro shook under the punishment. Then Bide released. The stored force detonated outward at close range and caught Nia before she could escape. She was thrown across the center of the arena and bounced hard against the ice before managing to dig one flipper into the snow and stop herself. Dawn's eyes widened.

"Nia!"

The Piplup forced herself upright. Poro nearly collapsed too. Both were breathing heavily now, but the gap between them had finally narrowed. White looked toward the eastern shelf.

Not enough.

"Brine. High."

Poro fired. Nia wasn't remotely in its path. The attack slammed against the shelf again. Water coated the ice already built there.

"Icy Wind."

The layer thickened. Candice watched the overhang beginning to take shape and smiled. White hadn't learned subtlety yet. She could see exactly what he was making. Then again, she had spent years teaching him how to make it. Dawn's eyes remained on Poro.

"Nia, go!"

The fight became rougher from there. Nia's earlier speed had begun to fade, but she continued to dictate the exchanges. Peck forced Poro away from the center. Fury Attack clipped him twice. Poro caught Nia with Slash and managed three quick Fury Swipes before Pound knocked him away again. White kept retreating east. Dawn kept following.

Poro gave up ground in pieces, each retreat accompanied by something small. A Powder Snow that drifted higher than necessary. An Icy Wind that caught more wall than opponent. Brine filling one of the shallow channels beside the ridge. Another layer of frost spreading overhead. Candice knew exactly what White was doing. She also knew it might not matter. Poro was taking too much damage. That would be the lesson afterward. Control didn't mean anything if you sacrificed your Pokémon to establish it.

"Nia, Bubble Beam!"

Poro took the edge of the attack and nearly fell. Dawn saw the opening.

"Peck!"

"Fury Swipes."

The moves collided. Poro landed once, Nia twice. Poro staggered beneath the overhang. Dawn's eyes lit up.

"He's cornered — Pound!"

Poro ducked beneath the flipper by inches.

"Bubble Beam!"

White looked up.

"Poro. Brine. Above."

For the first time, Dawn followed the attack instead of Nia. Brine struck the underside of the hanging ice. Her expression changed. Water spread through the frozen seams that connected the formation to the old training shelf.

"Poro, Icy Wind."

The gust hit those seams. A deep crack rolled across the arena. Dawn looked upward. The overhang shifted. Her eyes widened.

"Nia, move! Move!"

Nia turned. Her first step landed on a patch of ice concealed beneath Powder Snow. She slipped.

"Left!"

Nia corrected immediately, only to find one of the old ridges blocking the cleanest route. Dawn looked toward the remaining opening. Then back toward the formation. Understanding came all at once.

"Poro," White said.

The Cubchoo turned toward the support.

"Fury Swipes."

His claws struck the ice. Once. A fracture raced upward. Twice. The formation groaned.

"Nia, run!"

The third strike broke it. The hanging shelf tore free. It came down in pieces, the frozen mass breaking apart beneath its own weight as it fell. Broad slabs of ice crashed into the arena amid a curtain of powdered snow, filling the eastern side with a roar loud enough to echo through the Gym. Nia sprinted. The first slab struck behind her. The second shattered across the route ahead. She twisted right, trying to squeeze between them. A third piece clipped her shoulder. Nia disappeared into the burst of snow.

"Dawn!" Candice called.

"I'm fine! I'm fine—"

Dawn shielded her face with one arm but stayed outside the marked boundary. White didn't move. He watched the snow settle. For several seconds, nothing emerged. Then a blue flipper pushed through the powder.

"Nia!"

The Piplup dragged herself free. Dawn stepped forward.

Candice raised one hand. "Wait."

Nia stood. Barely. Across the broken ice, Poro was swaying badly enough that White wasn't sure he would last another exchange either. The two Pokémon faced one another. Nia tried to step forward. Her leg buckled. She caught herself. Tried once more. Then collapsed into the snow. Candice waited. Nia's flipper moved. She couldn't rise. Candice raised her hand.

"Nia is unable to continue. Poro wins."

The Gym fell quiet except for pieces of ice settling against one another. Then Dawn and White moved at almost the same time. White reached Poro just as the Cubchoo finally let his legs give out. He caught him before he hit the ground and lowered him carefully into his lap, hands immediately checking his shoulders, sides, legs, and jaw. Poro was soaked. Bruised. Exhausted. Nothing felt wrong enough to frighten him. White released a breath.

"You did good."

Poro made a tired sound and pressed his forehead against White's chest. White's hand settled between his ears. Across the wreckage, Dawn had already gathered Nia into her arms. The Piplup was apparently not too exhausted to complain, chirping indignantly while Dawn brushed snow from her feathers.

"Yes, I know," Dawn murmured. "You were winning. You were absolutely winning."

Nia chirped again, louder.

"You were. I said it. It's on the record."

White glanced over. Dawn caught him.

"Don't."

White looked away.

"No, I saw that. I saw the whole thing."

"I didn't do anything."

"You thought something. You've got a very loud face for someone who doesn't talk."

Candice laughed as she stepped carefully onto the field. Dawn turned toward the wreckage. For a few seconds she simply stared. Without Poro and Nia fighting across it, the battlefield looked completely different from the one they'd started on. Frozen streaks crossed the center where Bubble and Water Sport had been turned against Nia. Powder Snow concealed entire sections of slick ice. Brine filled channels along the eastern edge. Ridges that had seemed like old damage now divided one route from another. And above all of it lay the shattered remains of the formation that had ended the battle.

Dawn looked slowly toward White.

"The wall."

White adjusted Poro against his chest.

"What about it?"

"How long were you doing that?"

"A while."

Her eyes narrowed. "The Brine attacks."

White nodded.

"The ones that missed."

"They didn't."

Dawn's mouth opened slightly, then shut again. She looked from the broken shelf to the frozen patches across the arena, then toward the route Nia had taken during the final exchange. For several seconds, she didn't say anything at all, which White was beginning to understand meant something. Then she rounded on Candice.

"You knew."

Candice smiled. "Pretty early."

"And you didn't say anything!"

"I was refereeing."

"That feels like an excuse."

"It is."

Dawn made a sound of pure betrayal. Candice laughed and crouched beside one of the shattered slabs, running her fingers across the layered ice. Rough. Far too slow. They would be having that conversation later, at length, and White was not going to enjoy it. But the idea was there.

He'd used the water Dawn gave him. He'd hidden changes beneath snow. He'd turned old damage into barriers and built on the environment instead of wishing for a cleaner arena. When brute force wasn't enough, he'd kept changing the conditions until it was. Exactly as she'd spent five years teaching him to do. Candice looked toward White and couldn't stop the smile that came with it.

"Not bad."

White looked at her. Coming from Candice after a battle, those two words meant considerably more than Dawn seemed to realize.

Dawn shifted Nia higher in her arms. "Not bad? He dropped a chunk of the Gym on her. On my Pokémon. From above."

"Which worked."

"You're encouraging him!"

Candice stood, brushing ice from her knees. "Absolutely I am. Loudly. Constantly."

White's mouth moved slightly.

Dawn caught it immediately, and her whole face lit up. "Wait. Was that a smile?"

"No."

"It was. That was a smile. I watched it happen."

White started walking.

Dawn followed him across the wreckage, hopping over a slab to keep up. "Hey — you can't just walk away every time I catch you doing that. That's not a strategy."

"I can."

"You realize this only makes me more determined, right? This is the opposite of discouraging."

White did not answer.

"Rematch," Dawn announced.

That got him to look at her.

"Somewhere warm," she added, ticking the conditions off on the hand not holding Nia. "Somewhere without a blizzard, without hidden ice, and without anything above my head that you can drop on me."

White considered that. "That's specific."

"I have learned from experience. Recent experience. Very recent."

"One battle."

"One very educational battle."

Nia chirped agreement from her arms. White looked down at Poro. Despite his exhaustion, the Cubchoo opened one eye at the word rematch. White sighed.

"Okay."

Dawn's entire face brightened. "Good! Great. Next one's mine."

"No."

"You don't even know where we're battling."

"Doesn't matter."

"Oh, so now you're confident. Now we get confidence."

White looked forward again.

Dawn smiled beside him. "One to zero, then."

"We've battled once."

"Yes, White. That's generally how one to zero happens."

He decided not to answer. Candice called after them that both Pokémon were getting checked before either trainer went anywhere, followed closely by the announcement that they were both helping repair the eastern side of her arena. Dawn immediately objected that White had technically destroyed it, only for Candice to remind her that Nia had supplied a considerable amount of the water. Dawn muttered something under her breath. White wisely didn't ask. They walked toward the edge of the field together, Poro resting heavily against White's chest and Nia tucked into Dawn's arms. The residential hallway opened ahead of them, and somewhere down it, behind a closed door, a sealed silver case was still sitting against a wall. White realized he had not thought about it once since the battle began. Poro had. He felt the Cubchoo's head lift the moment they left the ice. White shifted his hold on him and kept walking. For perhaps ten seconds, Dawn was quiet.

White noticed. Then, inevitably, she spoke.

"You're still gloomy."

He glanced toward her.

Dawn smiled. "I thought winning might fix it. I really did. I had hopes."

White frowned. "Why?"

"Friendship plan."

"We're not friends."

"Not yet."

She said it with the same easy certainty as before and faced forward. White watched her for another moment before looking away. He still wasn't sure what to make of Dawn. She talked too much, decided things without consulting him, had spent most of their first battle beating Poro across the arena, and somehow still seemed cheerful after losing beneath several hundred pounds of ice. He wasn't her friend. But as Dawn began explaining quietly to Nia what they were going to change in the rematch, White found himself listening.

By the time they left the battlefield behind, he was already thinking about what he and Poro would change too.

---

A/N: So this was the first chapter!! (Or second if you count the prologue) and I hope you all enjoyed it! Like I said earlier, I will be posting chapters 2 AND 3 soon, I just have to add the finishing touches to them, after which you can expect much slower updates..

If you have any suggestions as to what Pokémon White should adopt next, please let me know!! Obviously, if you couldn't tell by now, White will be an Ice-type specialist, so please try to keep your suggestions within the typing (unless of course it's any ice adjacent Pokémon you really really love!) I'll try to get a poll/keep everyone's comments in mind while writing some of the story.

I'll also be attaching the list of Pokémon that all the characters have here at the bottom of this chapter, but I'm kind of at a loss of where I want to leave it.. For my readers on SB and QQ, I'll probably post a threadmark that I'll update every now and then with the themes of all relevant characters, but for those at ffnet.. I think this will have to do for now (blame the devs for keeping the site in such a dogshit state)

I'll see you all iiiiiiin the next chapter ooooof Whiteout!!

White's Pokémon:

Cubchoo (Poro)

Dawn's Pokémon:

Piplup (Nia)

Candice's Pokémon:

Abomasnow

Froslass

Weavile

Mamoswine

Glaceon

Lapras

Glalie

Galarian Mr. Mime

Snover

 

[Danimals]

Really good fanfic, I'm very excited for more

 

[BenevolentPumpkin]

I'm loving your story so far. I'll gladly wait as long as you need for your chapters because I am loving them so far so if you feel the need for more time, don't blame you. The one pokemon so far that I want to see White have is a alolan vulpix just because it's so cute and I like the idea of White with a very affectionate fairy type. Thank for the chapter.

 

[Cyber Josh]

Great start to the story! Really enjoyed it.

My personal top 10 potential party members for White:

1. That Snover seems really obviously set up to be first caught Pokemon
2. Baxcalibur line might a good shout, given the similar typings to Kyurem
3. Alolan Ninetales and/or Sandslash
4. Hisuian Avalugg since Sinnoh
5. Weavile of his own, perhaps
6. Walrein line would be good for a Water type coverage
7. Galarian Darmanitan would be funny for Monke related reasons.
8. Frosmoth because Moth
9. Mamoswine because Beeg Peeg
10. Crabominable because Punch Crab

 

[blue butterfly of death]

I'm loving your story so far. I'll gladly wait as long as you need for your chapters because I am loving them so far so if you feel the need for more time, don't blame you. The one pokemon so far that I want to see White have is a alolan vulpix just because it's so cute and I like the idea of White with a very affectionate fairy type. Thank for the chapter.

Click to shrink...

Thank you so much for reading!! I HAVE been thinking about giving him an alolan vulpix, (it's my little cousin's favorite pokemon) so you might be in luck haha

 

[blue butterfly of death]

Great start to the story! Really enjoyed it.

My personal top 10 potential party members for White:

1. That Snover seems really obviously set up to be first caught Pokemon
2. Baxcalibur line might a good shout, given the similar typings to Kyurem
3. Alolan Ninetales and/or Sandslash
4. Hisuian Avalugg since Sinnoh
5. Weavile of his own, perhaps
6. Walrein line would be good for a Water type coverage
7. Galarian Darmanitan would be funny for Monke related reasons.
8. Frosmoth because Moth
9. Mamoswine because Beeg Peeg
10. Crabominable because Punch Crab

Click to shrink...

Galarian Darmanitan would be hilarious thanks for the suggestion but yeah Snover will be joining White, just a little bit of Candice coming along with him.. I was thinking that Baxcalibur could be the real powerhouse of his team, however, so let me know what you think of that!

 

[blue butterfly of death]

Short A/N: Hello everyone! I ended up finishing the chapter much later than expected.. I really hoped to get all 3 chapters I worked on out before my semester started but.. lo and behold I'm already 2 weeks in and I'm just posting chapter 2. But I hope you all have as much fun reading as I had writing this chapter! Please enjoy.

Chapter 2: Fifteen

---

White woke to music.

That was the first problem.

The second was that he recognized the music.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for several seconds while something aggressively cheerful drifted through the wall from deeper inside the Gym. There were bells involved, possibly a tambourine, and enough clapping that he briefly wondered whether Candice had invited people over before sunrise.

Poro was already awake at the foot of the bed, sitting perfectly still and staring toward the door. When White looked at him, the Cubchoo glanced back as though expecting an explanation.

A muffled crash came from somewhere outside the room.

"It's fine!" Candice shouted.

White closed his eyes again. Poro made a quiet sound beside him.

"I know."

A second crash followed, quieter but somehow less reassuring.

White sat up. The room was cold enough that frost had gathered along the lower edge of the window overnight, though he barely noticed it as he pushed aside his blanket and reached for the clothes he'd folded beside the bed. Poro jumped down before White had finished pulling on his shirt, nose already raised toward the doorway as a smell drifted through the hall.

Something baked.

Something sugary.

Something slightly burnt.

White looked at Poro. "Don't."

Poro looked back.

"You'll encourage her."

The Cubchoo left anyway. White followed.

The first decoration waited for him at the end of the hall. A long strip of blue paper had been taped crookedly across the wall with HAPPY BIRTHDAY WHITE written in oversized silver letters. Hand-cut snowflakes surrounded the words. Some were carefully shaped and symmetrical.

Others were not.

White stopped in front of one. It had a face. He stared at it for several seconds before continuing.

The next hall was worse. Blue and white paper snowflakes hung from the ceiling, turning slowly whenever air moved through the Gym. White recognized Candice's immediately. They were large, uneven, and covered in enough glitter to become a long-term maintenance problem. The smaller ones were cleaner, folded with actual patience.

Dawn.

White frowned. She had been here for one day.

Apparently that was enough.

Poro hurried ahead, and White reached the kitchen just in time to see Candice halfway onto a chair with a banner stretched between both hands. Dawn looked up from the table at the sound of his footsteps. Galarian Mr. Mime stopped in the middle of some complicated dance step. Snover stood beside the counter with half a blue streamer hanging from his mouth.

For one brief moment, the entire kitchen went silent.

Then Candice smiled. "Nothing."

White looked at the banner in her hands. FIFTEEN had been written across it in enormous white letters. Then he looked at the chair beneath her.

"Get down."

"I have it."

The chair shifted.

White kept staring. Candice climbed down.

Across the table, Dawn pressed her lips together, very obviously trying not to laugh and doing a poor job of it. Nia sat beside her wearing a small paper cone hat that had already slipped sideways over one eye. Poro stopped when he saw her. Nia straightened at once, apparently hopeful that this was the morning Poro would finally recognize whatever friendship she had already decided existed between them.

Poro looked away.

Nia's cheeks puffed.

White decided that could become somebody else's problem.

The kitchen itself looked like a celebration had gone off inside it. Streamers crossed the ceiling. Scraps of blue and white paper covered one end of the table. Flour dusted part of the counter, and something suspiciously dark sat on a cooling rack near the stove. White looked at it.

Candice moved into his line of sight. "Don't."

"What is that?"

"Nothing."

"It looks burnt."

"It isn't burnt."

Dawn leaned sideways to see around her. "It's a little burnt."

Candice turned on her. "Whose side are you on?"

"I didn't know there were sides." Dawn blinked, the picture of innocence. "Nobody briefed me on sides. I'd have prepared."

"You've known him for one day."

"Exactly. I haven't had time to develop loyalty yet. Ask me Thursday."

White looked at Candice.

Candice pointed accusingly across the table. "This is what happens when you invite strangers into your home."

"You invited me!"

"I make mistakes."

White looked back toward the cooling rack. "Is that the cake?"

Candice shifted in front of it again. "No."

"It has frosting."

"Lots of things have frosting."

White turned toward Dawn. She lasted perhaps two seconds. "The first one caught fire."

Candice sighed. "It had structural problems."

"It caught fire, Candice. There were flames. I watched them happen."

"Those problems were related."

White stared at her. Candice folded her arms. "I would like to see you bake anything while your brother steals ingredients out from under you."

As though summoned by the accusation, Snover began chewing.

White looked down. Part of a blue decoration still hung from his mouth.

"Snover."

The Pokémon froze. White held out his hand. Snover slowly backed away.

"Don't."

Snover ran. Poro chased him immediately, and Nia launched herself off the table with a delighted chirp and went after both of them, her party hat coming off somewhere between the chair and the hallway.

Dawn twisted around to watch them go, one arm hooked over the back of her chair. "She's been at him about that all morning. All of it. Since before you were up. She has a whole campaign."

"Poro doesn't want to."

"He'll come around."

White looked at her. "You sound familiar."

Dawn brightened so fast it was almost audible. "See? Two days in and you're already learning how I think."

White regretted saying anything.

Candice put both hands on his shoulders and steered him toward the table before he could decide whether leaving was worth the effort. "Sit. You're ruining your own birthday standing there looking like you're investigating a crime."

White looked around the room. "It looks like one."

Dawn laughed much too loudly at that.

The table itself had been arranged more carefully than the rest of the kitchen. Eggs, toast, fruit, sausages, and a tall stack of pancakes filled the center, far more effort than Candice normally put into breakfast before Gym training. The pancakes had been decorated with whipped cream and berries in what had evidently been an attempt to resemble a snow-covered mountain.

White stared at them.

Candice said, "Dawn."

Dawn looked deeply offended. "Mine looked better before somebody added an avalanche."

"It needed snow."

"It had snow. It had a reasonable, tasteful, structurally sound amount of snow, and then you happened to it."

"Not enough."

Dawn turned toward White and spread her hands. "For the record. There was restraint involved before she got there."

White picked up his fork. "I believe you."

Her whole face lit. "Really?"

"No."

She laughed anyway.

Candice dropped into the chair beside him and immediately stole a strawberry off his plate. White moved the rest farther away on instinct. Dawn watched the exchange, then leaned forward onto her elbows with the expression of someone about to enjoy herself.

"Okay. Serious birthday question."

White waited.

"Do you actually feel fifteen?"

He paused with his fork halfway to the pancakes. "That's a strange question."

"I know. The normal ones are boring. Everyone asks if you feel older. Nobody asks if the number's right."

Candice stole another strawberry. White moved the plate again. Eventually he shrugged. "No."

Dawn's expression turned curious rather than disappointed. "What age do you feel?"

White thought about it. "I don't know."

That quieted her. His birthdays tended to do that eventually.

Nobody knew when White had actually been born. The date belonged to Candice, chosen five years ago because a form had required one, and for a long time it had felt borrowed, the way his name had once felt borrowed. He had stopped noticing that somewhere along the way. He was not sure it counted as an answer.

White glanced toward Candice. She was already watching him. He looked back down at his breakfast.

Dawn caught the shift. To her credit, she let it go. She poked thoughtfully at one of the pancakes instead, and then her expression brightened all at once.

"Oh. Your exam's today too, isn't it?"

White looked up.

There it was. He had managed almost ten minutes without thinking about it.

Candice smiled. "This afternoon."

Dawn sat up straight. "Your actual license exam. The real one."

White didn't answer, which she took as confirmation and rode straight past. "Written, field competency, practical battle?"

"Yes."

"All of it today?"

"That's generally how exams work."

Dawn looked considerably more excited about this than he did. "That's perfect."

White frowned. "Why?"

"Birthday and your license on the same day. That's a story. That's the kind of thing you get to say for the rest of your life."

"That wasn't intentional."

Candice reached for another strawberry. White moved the plate out of range entirely.

"It was a little intentional," she admitted.

White stared at her.

Candice shrugged. "You became eligible today. The next testing date wasn't for another few weeks. You wanted the first slot."

That was true. It didn't mean he had to appreciate her saying it.

Dawn leaned forward again. "Are you nervous?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Not even a little exam panic? Not one small piece of it?"

"No."

Dawn considered him with open suspicion. "I was awful the morning of mine. Genuinely awful. I reread the whole safety manual twice because I'd convinced myself they were going to ask me something incredibly specific about avalanche procedure, which they did not, because why would they, I took it in Sandgem."

White looked around the kitchen. "We live in Snowpoint."

"Exactly! So you already know all of it."

"I do."

Dawn pointed at him, triumphant. "See? You're going to be fine."

"You asked if I was nervous."

"And I've decided you aren't anymore. Case closed. You're welcome."

White stared at her. Candice laughed quietly into her drink.

Dawn was already moving on. "Okay, what part do you dislike, then? Not worried about. Dislike."

That was a better question. "Written regulations."

Her face lit up again. "Oh, I was good at those."

"I know."

Dawn paused. "How?"

"You told me your score yesterday."

"Oh."

"Several times."

"It was ninety-six."

"That's another time."

Dawn grinned into her plate, entirely unrepentant. "You remembered, though."

White returned to his breakfast.

Candice leaned back in her chair, looking far too comfortable. "If he fails, I'm blaming you for distracting him."

"I'm motivating him."

"You're talking at him."

"Those are the same thing. That's my whole method."

White sighed.

The licensing exam had been distant when he'd filled out the application. Even yesterday it had still been another requirement, another set of boxes. Written questions, emergency procedures, care standards, practical evaluation. Something to pass. Now it sat a few hours away, and behind it sat the part that actually mattered: after today, assuming he passed, there would be nothing legally keeping him in Snowpoint.

That carried more weight than the exam did.

Dawn seemed ready to keep going, but Candice looked toward the doorway.

"Where did Snover go?"

White paused. Everyone listened.

Silence.

Candice stood immediately. "That's worse."

They found Snover beneath the kitchen table with the missing frosting bag. The remainder of breakfast deteriorated from there.

By the time the mess had been cleaned, the surviving food eaten, and Snover formally prohibited from entering the kitchen unsupervised for the rest of the morning, White had almost managed to forget about the exam again.

Then the lights went out.

White looked slowly toward Candice. She smiled.

"No."

"Too late."

The music returned. Louder.

Mr. Mime stepped through the doorway wearing a party hat, raised both arms, and struck a pose that Dawn greeted with immediate and total delight.

"Oh, we're doing this?"

"No," White said.

"Yes," Candice answered at exactly the same time.

Dawn was already pushing her chair back. "Sorry. Majority vote."

"There wasn't a vote."

"I voted."

"So did I," Candice said.

"You don't get two votes."

"I'm the Gym Leader."

"That's not how voting works."

Mr. Mime started dancing.

Candice joined without hesitation. Dawn lasted perhaps two seconds before she was up beside her. Unlike Candice, who seemed committed to making the routine as embarrassing as physically possible, Dawn actually tried to follow the steps. She missed the first turn, recovered on the second, and celebrated the recovery like somebody had been keeping score.

Nia came racing back into the room and joined instantly. Snover followed. Poro arrived last.

White looked down at him. Poro looked toward the dancing. Then back at White.

"Don't."

Poro joined them.

White stared at the betrayal.

Dawn caught sight of his face and laughed so hard she lost the step again. "See? Poro gets it."

"He doesn't."

Poro was attempting to copy Nia's movements, badly.

"He absolutely does."

White remained seated.

Five years ago, he would have left. He probably wouldn't have known where to go — somewhere empty, somewhere quiet, somewhere nobody expected him to react correctly to whatever celebration they had built around him. Back then, being noticed had been exhausting.

Now he stayed.

Candice danced badly on purpose and nearly hit the table twice. Dawn laughed every time she got a step wrong and immediately tried it again. Nia had apparently decided she was leading. Snover had no idea what anyone else was doing and seemed happier for it.

Poro looked ridiculous.

White watched all of them.

Dawn caught his eye first and waved him over. White shook his head. She tried once more, then took the refusal with a grin and turned back to the others.

Candice caught his eye a moment later. Her expression changed. Not much. The exaggerated grin disappeared, replaced by something smaller and warmer.

White knew that look. He glanced away.

The corner of his mouth moved anyway.

Candice saw it. Of course she did.

Dawn saw it too. Her eyes widened, and White recognized the exact moment she prepared to say something about it.

Candice caught her arm and gave the smallest shake of her head.

For once, Dawn understood. She smiled instead and turned back toward the others.

Nobody said anything. The music continued. White stayed where he was.

And somehow that was enough.

---

Later that morning, White found himself back outside.

Most of the damage from yesterday's battle remained scattered across the Gym's rear training grounds. The larger pieces of the collapsed formation had been shifted away from the center, but broken slabs still rested along the eastern boundary, and frozen channels left by Brine, Bubble, and Water Sport cut through the snow like old scars.

Candice had called it cleanup.

White suspected she mostly wanted free labor.

Dawn, unfortunately, had volunteered enthusiastically.

She stood near the eastern wall with Nia beside her, staring at the largest remaining piece of shattered ice as though it had personally wronged her.

"I still think dropping this on Nia was excessive."

White lifted one end of another slab. "It worked."

"That's not a defense."

"It's a good defense."

Dawn turned toward Candice, appealing to a higher authority. "See? This is exactly what I meant. This is the attitude."

Candice stood several yards away beside Abomasnow, who had already cleared more debris by himself than the three humans combined. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I was winning."

"You lost," White said.

"I know. That's what I'm confused about."

"You weren't winning."

"I was winning until I lost, which as far as I'm concerned is a totally different situation." Dawn threw both hands up. "Nia was hitting Poro constantly. He could barely stand. Half your attacks weren't even pointed at her. And then I ended up under a wall."

"Not a wall."

Dawn pointed a gloved finger at him. "We are not doing this again. That's why the rematch has rules. Somewhere warm, no blizzard, and nothing above my head."

Candice laughed. "You were winning."

Dawn spun toward her, vindicated so completely that she nearly dropped the slab she'd picked up.

White frowned.

Candice held up one hand. "You were winning the part of the battle you were paying attention to."

The triumph drained out of Dawn's face. She glanced toward the field. "There's another part?"

"There's always another part."

Candice walked toward them, boots crunching through the packed snow. "Actually, yesterday's a decent example of something every League trainer gets taught eventually." She crouched and drew a rough circle in the snow with one gloved finger. "Have either of you heard of the Four Battle Archetypes?"

Dawn answered first. "Obviously."

White nodded. Almost every trainer had.

The framework was older than either of them, old enough that the article behind it had outgrown the man who wrote it. Edwin Vale had been a League instructor several generations earlier when he published the argument that nearly every successful strategy, however complicated it looked from outside, eventually reduced to one of four approaches — and that each of the four won by denying the opponent something they needed.

The idea had outlived him. Trainer Schools taught it. Commentators reached for it during professional matches. Simplified versions of Vale's diagram turned up in introductory battle theory across every major region.

Candice wrote four words around the circle.

JUGGERNAUT

ATTRITIONIST

AGGRESSOR

CONTROLLER

Then she drew arrows between them. "Everyone remembers the circle. Juggernaut pressures Attritionist. Attritionist pressures Aggressor. Aggressor pressures Controller. Controller pressures Juggernaut."

Dawn crouched beside her, already peering at it. "Rowan made me learn a mnemonic for this. It was the worst thing I've ever had to memorize."

Candice looked interested. "Let's hear it."

"Absolutely not."

"Then it must be very bad."

"It was humiliating. He said it with a completely straight face. Every time."

White almost wanted to hear it now.

Candice stood and brushed snow off her glove. "The diagram's the easy part. The useful part is why it works." She pointed at the first word.

"Juggernauts deny survival."

Dawn glanced toward Abomasnow.

Candice noticed and smiled. "Sometimes." She rested a hand against his arm. "Good ones aren't stupid. They're terrifying because they know exactly when they've stopped needing to play around your answer. Power, durability, favorable direct exchanges. Once they're sure they can break through you, they make you prove otherwise."

White thought immediately of Mamoswine.

Candice noticed. "Yes."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to."

Dawn looked between them. "Mamoswine?"

"Very much Mamoswine."

That seemed to satisfy her.

"Cynthia's the best example you'll ever see at that level," Candice went on. "She can fight almost any way she wants. But when she decides it's time to force the issue, she's brutal about it. You know Garchomp is coming. You know exactly what it does. You can build an answer specifically for it." She smiled faintly. "Then Garchomp breaks the answer."

Dawn grimaced. "That's comforting."

"It isn't supposed to be."

Candice moved to the next word. "Attritionists deny a path to victory. They don't need to beat you quickly. They make sure you run out of ways to beat them first."

"Recovery," Dawn said.

"Recovery. Defensive switching. Protecting. Status. Hazards. Chip. Anything that makes the other side spend more than you do." She traced the arrow toward Aggressor. "That's why they give Aggressors trouble. Pressure only matters if it eventually becomes a finish. If you keep attacking and they keep surviving it a little cheaper than you paid to attack, eventually the pressure just runs out."

Dawn frowned at the circle. "So an Attritionist can lose a bunch of individual exchanges and still be winning."

"Sometimes that's the plan."

Dawn looked personally offended by the concept.

White understood it more easily.

"If you spend twice as much winning an exchange as they spend surviving it," Candice said, "who came out ahead?"

Dawn looked back at the diagram. "Oh."

"Took you long enough," White said.

Her head came up. "You lost most of yesterday."

"Still won."

"With a wall."

"Not a wall."

Candice moved on before they could restart it. "Aggressors deny initiative."

Dawn's expression changed almost immediately. Candice caught it. So did White.

Dawn looked between them. "Why are you both looking at me?"

"Because this one's you."

"Already?"

"Very much."

Dawn looked pleased despite herself.

"Aggressors don't want the other side getting a free turn to do what they planned. They pressure, interrupt, close distance, force reactions. Taunt. Encore. Priority. Anything that says you don't get to spend this moment the way you wanted to." Candice nodded toward the ruined field. "You did it constantly. Powder Snow blocked your sight, so you attacked through it. Poro made distance, so you closed it. White tried to set his footing, and you were already on top of him again."

Dawn smiled. "That sounds good."

"It is."

Her smile faltered. "You're about to say 'until,' aren't you."

Candice laughed. "Until the other side survives long enough for your momentum to run out. Or until you're so committed to keeping the pressure on that you stop asking why your opponent keeps giving you ground."

Dawn turned slowly toward White.

He found the broken ice in front of him extremely interesting.

"You knew I'd keep chasing."

White shrugged.

"When?"

"Early."

"How early?"

"Second time."

Dawn stared at him. "The second time?"

"You did it again."

"You were losing."

"Yes."

Her expression suggested that had made everything considerably worse.

Candice tapped the final word. "Controller."

White looked up.

"Controllers deny conditions and space. They don't stop your moves from working. They remove the circumstances your moves need in order to matter." She let that sit for a second. "A fast Pokémon is still fast on ice. It just can't use the speed the same way. A ranged attack is still powerful with a wall between you and the target. A Juggernaut hits exactly as hard while it's being funneled down a narrow route, slowed by terrain, blinded by weather, forced to come from a direction it didn't choose."

She looked at White. "This is you."

He already knew that.

"You look at what the opponent needs in order to succeed, and you start taking it away. Terrain. Weather. Visibility. Distance. Routes. Sometimes you never have to touch their strength at all." Candice nudged one of the frozen channels with her boot. "You make it stop mattering."

Dawn's eyes went to the remains of the eastern formation. "The ice wall."

"The whole battle," Candice corrected. "The wall was just the end of it."

White glanced at her. That was better.

It was the same lesson she had shown him years ago, sitting in the front row of her own Gym while Abomasnow took an arena apart around a Magmortar that had come north with seven badges and no particular respect for the floor. The scale was different. White was still nowhere near it. He had been trying to do the same thing ever since.

Candice caught the glance. "You're getting there."

White looked away.

She crouched again and tapped the circle. "Now look at why the cycle works." Her finger moved from Juggernaut to Attritionist. "Walls only work if the other side can't break them." Then Attritionist to Aggressor. "Pressure has to end in something, or it just ends." Aggressor to Controller. "Control needs opportunities. Aggressors make every opportunity expensive." Finally, Controller to Juggernaut. "And Controllers don't have to match raw strength. They change where and how it gets used."

Dawn studied the circle. "So it's basically a type chart."

"No." Candice said it before Dawn had finished the sentence.

Dawn blinked.

"That's how people misunderstand it. These aren't counters, they're pressures. A good Controller beats an Aggressor all the time. A good Attritionist survives a Juggernaut. The circle only tells you which assumption your style naturally attacks."

White looked at the arrow running from Aggressor to Controller.

Yesterday suddenly looked simpler. Dawn hadn't dominated Poro early because White's approach was worthless. She had dominated because the way she naturally battled went straight at what he naturally needed.

Time. Space. Opportunity.

Candice looked at him. "And yesterday showed exactly where you're weak."

White knew. "Poro took too much damage."

"Way too much."

Dawn looked delighted by the emphasis. White ignored her.

"You saw the battlefield you wanted and decided finishing it was worth almost anything," Candice said. "That's not control. That's stubbornness."

"It worked."

"So does walking through a wall if you hit it long enough. Doesn't make it the best door."

Dawn laughed.

White considered the field. "What should I have done?"

Candice's expression softened. "Changed the answer. Hit Nia harder. Break her rhythm. Give up part of the setup if that's what keeps Poro standing." She shrugged. "Control isn't building the exact field you imagined. It's controlling what matters."

White nodded slowly.

"That's the part the circle doesn't teach you. Nobody good lives in one corner of it. Cynthia can force a battle like a Juggernaut, and that isn't all she does. I prefer control, and sometimes the correct answer is still sending Mamoswine forward and letting the other trainer work it out."

Dawn smiled. "That still sounds like a threat."

"It usually is."

White glanced at the circle. "Where does Trick Room fit?"

Dawn looked over at him.

Candice looked pleased by the question. "Wherever the trainer's using it."

White frowned.

"That's where Specialist confuses people. A type specialist is a separate thing — I'm an Ice specialist because that's what I've built my knowledge around, and an Ice specialist can be any of the four, or a mix. A battle specialist means someone's strategy leans hard on one engine. Trick Room. A status-and-recovery system. A particular offensive chain. It isn't a fifth archetype. It's a description of how much weight one piece is carrying."

Dawn tilted her head. "Then why do half the Trainer Schools put Specialist next to the other four?"

"Because the simplified warning is useful. Specialists are terrifying with the engine running and very fragile without it. Kids get 'fifth battle style' faster than they get a footnote about terminology."

"So they teach it wrong because it's easier."

"They teach it usefully."

"That's an instructor answer."

"I am an instructor."

White looked again at the four words in the snow.

Survival. Victory. Initiative. Conditions.

Simple enough for children. Complicated enough that people had spent whole careers arguing about them.

Dawn looked toward him. "So I'm an Aggressor."

"Right now that's what comes naturally," Candice said.

"And White's a Controller."

"Painfully."

White frowned.

Candice smiled. "You know it's true."

Dawn's face brightened all over again. "Then I definitely want a rematch."

"No."

"You didn't even let me finish."

"I knew what you were asking."

"After the exam?"

"No."

"Tomorrow?"

"No."

"On the road?"

White paused.

Dawn noticed instantly. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait."

White already disliked where this was going.

"You don't actually know where you're going once you get your license. Do you."

"Not yet."

Her face lit up with alarming speed. "Come to Twinleaf with me."

"No."

"You answered that way too fast."

White turned back to the debris pile without answering.

"Professor Rowan is there."

"I know."

"You know Rowan."

"I know."

"I'm bringing the samples back to him."

White's expression tightened slightly.

Dawn caught it and softened, though only a little. "He's going to want to talk to you after we finish testing here anyway. You know he is."

"He can call."

"That is incredibly boring and you know it."

White bent and lifted another slab of broken ice. Dawn grabbed the opposite end before he could move it. He looked at her hands.

"I'm helping."

"You weren't."

"I am now."

They started toward the pile together, and she resumed almost immediately. "Also, you've never been to Twinleaf."

"Yes."

"That's a reason."

"It isn't."

"It's somewhere new."

"There are a lot of places that are new."

"Exactly! That's the whole point. You have to start with one of them, and this one has a professor in it and a free travel companion who is objectively excellent company."

White looked at her. Dawn smiled brightly, as though she had just solved the problem for both of them.

They set the slab down. White headed for another. She followed.

"You said you want to travel."

"I do."

"You're getting your license today."

"Hopefully."

Dawn had gotten out in front of him and was walking backwards through the snow now, counting on her fingers, apparently confident the ground behind her would sort itself out.

"You don't have anywhere else you're supposed to be."

"No."

"I'm already going south."

"Yes."

"So come with me."

"No."

Dawn stopped. "Why not?"

White did too.

The annoying part was that he didn't have an answer.

For years, leaving Snowpoint had existed as an idea with no geography attached to it. Travel. Train. Battle. See somewhere he hadn't seen. Become stronger. Maybe find something along the way that made the hollow places feel less empty. There had never been a first road attached to any of it.

Dawn apparently considered that an easily fixable problem.

Her voice dropped a little, though the energy underneath it never went anywhere. "I'm going there anyway. You'd have someone for the first stretch. Rowan already knows you, the samples have to go back, and when we get there you can decide where you actually want to go next." She shrugged. "That's all it has to be."

White looked away.

"Plus," Dawn added, unable to stay serious for more than about six seconds, "it gives you loads of time to lose the rematch before we arrive."

White looked back. She grinned.

"No."

"That one was less convincing."

"It wasn't."

Dawn turned toward Candice. "Help me."

White's gaze snapped over. "Don't."

Candice had been watching them quietly for several minutes.

Dawn gestured at White with both hands. "He has no plan."

"I have a plan."

"Where are you going?"

White said nothing.

Dawn turned back to Candice, triumphant. "See?"

Candice didn't laugh. She looked at White, and something in her face made Dawn go quiet too.

White knew that look.

Candice had spent years refusing to make the important choices for him. Whether he wanted to battle. Which Pokémon he trained beside. Whether he wanted to meet someone new. Whether Snowpoint was somewhere he wanted to stay. She pushed. She advised. She almost never chose.

This time she did.

"Go with her."

White stared at her. Dawn's mouth opened, but whatever she saw pass between them stopped her.

There was pride in Candice's face. And something quieter underneath it, something she was working to keep from becoming sadness. White had lived with her too long not to recognize it.

Candice glanced toward the path leading away from the Gym, then back at him. "You've spent years talking about leaving. You don't need the perfect first destination."

White stayed silent.

"You just need a first one."

Snow drifted between them.

"Go see Rowan. Help return the samples. See Twinleaf. After that, decide what you want."

There was no command in her voice. That made it harder to ignore.

White looked at Dawn. For once she wasn't smiling triumphantly. The insistence had gone out of her. She simply waited.

He looked back at Candice. She gave him one small nod.

Certain.

White understood.

"Okay."

Dawn's head snapped toward him. "Okay?"

He immediately regretted saying it within her hearing.

"Okay."

Her entire face lit up. "You're coming?"

"To Twinleaf."

"With me."

"To Twinleaf."

Dawn put both hands on top of her head, which seemed to be what she did when a thing was too large to hold still through. "That is still with me."

"Temporarily."

"Sure."

White looked toward Candice. Her smile had returned. He knew that one too.

"You planned this."

"No."

Dawn looked between them. "Did you?"

Candice shrugged. "I hoped."

"Same thing," White muttered.

Dawn laughed and fell into step beside him as he headed for the next piece of ice. "This is going to be fun."

"You don't know that."

"I've decided."

"That's becoming a problem."

"Friendship plan."

"We're not friends."

Dawn glanced toward the road south, then back at him with a grin. "Plenty of road."

White looked toward Candice one last time. She stood beside Abomasnow with one hand resting against his arm, watching him with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had spent five years preparing him to leave and had apparently decided that didn't mean she had to enjoy it.

White turned back toward the ice.

Twinleaf.

It wasn't much of a plan. For the first time, that didn't seem like a reason not to go.

---

By the time White reached the Snowpoint League office, Dawn had asked him whether he was nervous six times.

The answer had not changed. "No."

"You hesitated that time."

"I didn't."

"You did."

White kept walking.

Dawn hurried half a step to stay beside him, Nia tucked against her side while Poro padded through the snow near White's boots. Snow came down in slow, lazy flakes over the city, catching in Dawn's hair and melting almost immediately. Candice walked on White's other side with her hands buried in her coat pockets, apparently content to let Dawn conduct the interrogation.

"Are you sure? Because you look nervous."

"This is how he always looks," Candice said.

White glanced at her.

Candice smiled. "See?"

Dawn studied him with renewed interest. "So that's just your face."

"Unfortunately."

She laughed, and started asking something else, and White increased his pace enough to make his opinion clear.

The League office stood near the center of Snowpoint, a squat stone building White had passed hundreds of times without ever having much reason to enter. A blue League insignia hung above the entrance, half-buried under fresh snow. The notice board beside it carried tournament announcements, Gym challenge schedules, route closures, wilderness safety courses, and seasonal warnings for trainers heading into northern Sinnoh.

White stopped when he saw one notice pinned slightly crooked beneath the others.

INDEPENDENT TRAINER LICENSING EXAMINATION

Today's date sat underneath it beside the afternoon schedule.

Dawn leaned around his shoulder. "That's you."

"I know."

"That's official. That's got your date on it and everything."

"I can read."

She grinned. "Very cheerful for your birthday."

Candice opened the door before White could answer. "Save some of that for the examiner."

Warm air hit him the moment they stepped inside. White disliked it immediately.

The lobby was quieter than the Gym, all polished floor and rows of chairs beneath another League crest. Several other prospective trainers waited with parents or guardians. One boy about White's age sat hunched over a safety booklet, silently mouthing emergency procedures while his mother told him, repeatedly, that studying five minutes before the exam was not going to change anything.

White watched him for a moment.

Dawn noticed. "Feeling better?"

"No."

"You compared."

"I looked at him."

"Exactly."

White walked toward the reception desk before she could turn that into a whole conversation. Candice followed. Dawn came anyway.

The woman behind the desk looked up as they approached. Her badge identified her as a League administrative officer, and the volume of paperwork surrounding her made White immediately suspicious of her occupation.

"Name?"

"White."

The woman waited. White waited too.

Her eyes flicked toward the application on her screen. "Last name?"

"Just White."

There was a short pause, but no surprise followed it, and no awkwardness. She found the record and nodded. "White. Fifteen as of today?"

"Yes."

"Happy birthday."

White blinked. "Thanks."

She slid a form across the desk. "I need your signature confirming the information on your application is still accurate. Your guardian's already submitted the medical documentation and proof of eligibility."

White took the pen. The information was familiar.

Legal Name: White.

Date of Birth: today's date.

Place of Birth: Unknown.

Parent or Legal Guardian: Candice.

His eyes paused there before moving lower.

Emergency Contact: Candice.

He signed.

The officer collected the page and handed him a temporary identification card. "Written examination begins in ten minutes. Field competency follows, then practical evaluation. Your guardian may remain in designated observation areas, but she can't communicate with you once testing begins."

Dawn leaned forward immediately. "Can I watch?"

The officer looked at her. "Are you his guardian?"

"No."

"I gathered."

Dawn smiled brightly, entirely unembarrassed.

"Public observation is permitted during the practical portion only."

Her face fell.

White almost smiled. She caught it instantly. "Don't look so happy about that."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to."

Candice made a quiet sound suspiciously close to a laugh, then rested a hand on White's shoulder and turned him toward the hallway. "Go. Don't overthink it."

White nodded.

Dawn raised a fist. "Ninety-seven."

He frowned. "What?"

"Beat my score."

"You got ninety-six."

"Exactly."

White started down the hallway.

"No pressure!" Dawn called after him.

There was pressure. Mostly from Dawn.

---

White hated question thirty-two.

He had decided this with absolute certainty.

The first half of the written examination had been easy. Pokémon care, exhaustion, hydration, basic first aid, environmental hazards, emergency signaling, safe interactions with wild Pokémon. The section on cold exposure bordered on insulting. Question nineteen asked him to identify the early signs of hypothermia, and White spent longer staring at the wording than he did choosing the answer.

The wilderness portion was better. Route planning. Shelter. Water purification. Handling an injured Pokémon several hours from the nearest Center. What to do when separated from a traveling companion during a blizzard. Candice had drilled most of it into him long before he was old enough to sit the exam.

Then came League regulations.

White read question thirty-two for the third time.

A registered independent trainer enters an officially sanctioned battle against a provisional license holder in a municipality operating under League Regulation 14-B. Under which circumstance may the independent trainer—

His eyes stopped. Every answer choice was a paragraph.

White looked toward the clock. Plenty of time.

That somehow made it worse.

Question thirty-three involved temporary route restrictions. Thirty-four concerned registered Pokémon transport between regions. Thirty-five wanted to know how long a trainer had to report a change of permanent residence.

White stared at that one. He could not imagine Poro caring whether the League knew where White slept.

He selected five business days after thinking about it far too long.

The last question was better.

During a battle, your Pokémon is physically capable of continuing but begins ignoring commands, showing signs of distress, and attempting to disengage. What is the appropriate response?

White marked it immediately.

End the battle.

That one shouldn't have needed multiple choices.

When he finished, seven minutes remained. He spent none of them on question thirty-two.

---

Dawn was waiting outside when White emerged.

"How was it?"

"Bad."

Her eyes went wide. "Bad?"

"Regulations."

The concern vanished off her face instantly. "Oh. Those are easy."

White stared at her.

She smiled apologetically. "Sorry."

"No, you're not."

"No."

Candice looked up from the bench. "Anything you didn't know?"

"Residence change."

"Five business days."

White paused. Then nodded once.

Dawn looked genuinely disappointed. "You got it right?"

"Apparently."

"That's unfortunate."

White started toward the next testing area. She hurried after him. "Why?"

"Because you wanted me to get it wrong."

"I wanted something to tease you about."

"You'll find something."

Dawn beamed. "See? You know me already."

White regretted that sentence immediately.

---

The field assessment was considerably better, mostly because nobody was interested in tricking him with wording.

An evaluator handed White a standard travel pack and worked through a series of practical scenarios. He built an emergency shelter suitable for a small Pokémon in heavy snowfall, identified signs of overexertion in Ice-types that tended to hide discomfort well, demonstrated how to stabilize an injured limb before transport, and explained what he would do if a territorial wild Pokémon blocked the only safe route through a mountain pass.

The evaluator deliberately handed him an incomplete first-aid kit during one scenario. White checked the contents before starting, noticed the missing bandages and disinfectant, and said so.

Something went onto the clipboard. White tried not to look.

The final scenario involved an unconscious trainer lying beside an agitated Pokémon known to turn defensive when its partner was hurt.

"What do you do first?" the evaluator asked.

"Assess the environment."

"Not the trainer?"

"Not if I get attacked before I reach them."

The evaluator nodded once. "Continue."

White explained that he would avoid a direct approach, determine whether the Pokémon was guarding its trainer or panicking, try to calm it from distance, and use one of his own Pokémon for noninjurious restraint if necessary. If no safe restraint was available, he would wait for assistance unless the trainer's condition looked immediately life-threatening. If it did, he would create a distraction or an obstruction — something to put between them long enough to begin treatment.

The evaluator listened without interrupting. Then wrote something down.

"Good."

It was the first actual confirmation White had received all afternoon that he knew what he was doing.

He liked the field portion.

---

The practical battle came last.

Dawn had apparently spent White's absence acquiring snacks. She was halfway through one when he stepped into the League's outdoor evaluation arena, and she was on her feet before he'd finished crossing the boundary.

"You made it!"

White looked around. "Were you expecting me not to?"

"No, but I've been waiting forever."

"It was forty minutes."

"Exactly."

Candice sat beside her in the small observation section overlooking the field. Poro had stayed with White through most of the field assessment and now moved ahead of him onto the packed snow, visibly more interested in this portion of the exam than any of the others.

Across the field stood a woman White hadn't met, somewhere in her thirties, dark hair tied high behind her head, a heavy gray League coat fastened at the throat.

Beside her waited a Machoke.

White slowed.

It was broad even for its species, heavily muscled through the shoulders and torso, thick arms hanging loose at its sides. It wasn't posturing. It didn't need to. Even relaxed, it looked like something built to walk through whatever happened to be standing in front of it.

Poro stopped several feet ahead of White. He looked up.

Then farther up.

Dawn stopped chewing. "Oh."

White glanced toward the observation area. Dawn gave him a sympathetic smile.

Candice didn't look concerned at all.

That helped more.

The examiner stepped onto the field. "White?"

"Yes."

"Examiner Sera. This is the final portion of your independent licensing evaluation, and it isn't a standard League battle. I'm assessing command clarity, awareness of your Pokémon, adaptability, safety, decision-making, and your ability to recognize when continuing is no longer appropriate." She let that land. "Whether you defeat me is largely irrelevant."

White looked at Machoke again.

That explained the choice.

"One Pokémon each. I'll regulate the intensity. You may concede at any point without automatically failing. If I decide your Pokémon is at unreasonable risk, I'll stop it myself." She paused. "Questions?"

"No."

"Take your position."

White moved into the trainer's box with Poro several paces ahead of him. Sera waited until both sides had settled before lifting one hand.

"Begin. Machoke, Bullet Punch."

There was no testing jab. No slow opening. Machoke moved.

Snow burst beneath its feet as it crossed the first stretch of field with startling speed, one fist flashing metallic silver.

"Poro, Powder Snow. Wide."

Poro released a thick burst of white. The cloud spread rather than concentrating, swallowing him and several yards of field at once.

Machoke never slowed. The Bullet Punch tore straight through the whiteout.

"Poro, left."

Poro moved at the last instant. The fist passed close enough to part the fur along his shoulder and missed.

White watched Machoke pivot. No hesitation. No concern about the lost sightline. It simply turned and kept coming.

"Rock Tomb," Sera said.

Machoke drove both fists down and the ground answered. Stone erupted through the packed snow in a violent spray. Poro jumped clear of the first chunk, twisted past another, then vanished behind one as a third smashed down close enough to shower him in fragments. A smaller piece clipped his flank and spun him sideways.

"Poro!"

The Cubchoo rolled, planted his claws, and stopped himself.

White's eyes moved off him immediately. Not because Poro didn't matter.

Because the rocks did.

Three large formations now interrupted what had been an almost perfectly open field. One near the center, another closer to the eastern edge, and the third had landed crookedly enough to leave a narrow channel between itself and the arena boundary.

The examiner had just changed the battlefield for him.

White filed that away.

Machoke was already moving.

"Low Sweep."

"Poro, Icy Wind!"

Poro blasted cold across the approach. Frost gathered over Machoke's legs and waist, and the air around it turned white.

Machoke walked through it. Its leg swept low. Poro tried to jump.

Too late.

The strike caught him across the legs and sent him tumbling through the snow.

Dawn rose halfway out of her seat. Candice didn't move.

White watched Machoke instead.

Power. Direct advancement. Immediate punishment every time Poro stood inside its reach. Sera wasn't chasing complicated exchanges or building toward an engine or bleeding him slowly. Every command demanded the same thing.

Stop this.

White's eyes narrowed.

Juggernaut.

The realization settled into place almost pleasantly. Not mindless — that was the mistake the simplified diagrams encouraged. She was choosing direct exchanges because she knew Machoke won them. Poro's individual answers didn't matter if Machoke could keep breaking through each one.

And a Controller did not answer a Juggernaut by hitting harder.

"Poro, Brine. Center rock."

Poro pushed himself upright and fired.

Sera's eyes shifted.

The stream missed Machoke completely and struck the largest chunk of Rock Tomb instead. Water burst across its face, soaked the snow around the base, and ran down into the shallow depression where the stone had broken through the ground.

Dawn stopped chewing entirely.

Machoke advanced. "Karate Chop."

"Powder Snow, low."

Poro swept another cloud across the ground rather than at Machoke. Fresh snow settled over the wet patch.

Machoke stepped into it.

White waited. "Now. Icy Wind."

Cold tore over the field. The Brine froze. A slick sheet formed beneath the powder, and Machoke's leading foot slid several inches.

Not much. Enough.

The Karate Chop came down at the wrong angle.

"Poro, around the rock."

Poro darted behind the stone. Machoke's hand smashed into the edge instead, and the rock cracked.

White watched the fracture spread.

Useful.

Sera's expression stayed neutral. "Break through it."

Machoke drove its shoulder into the stone.

White almost smiled. Of course.

The rock shattered. Chunks sprayed outward, destroying his cover in a single impact.

Juggernaut. It did not care about the answer. It broke the answer.

But broken cover was still terrain.

White's eyes tracked where the pieces landed. Two new obstacles to the west. A shallow ridge of debris near center. A larger fragment sitting between Machoke and the eastern channel.

The field was getting worse.

Which meant it was getting better.

"Brine, east."

Poro fired again, sweeping water in a broad line along the narrow space beside the arena boundary.

Sera understood immediately that he had stopped aiming for Machoke. "Don't give him time. Bullet Punch."

Machoke surged forward.

Aggression supporting the Juggernaut. White felt something click into place. The Four Battle Archetypes weren't cages — Candice had said exactly that a few hours ago. Sera hadn't stopped being a Juggernaut because she understood a Controller needed time. She simply knew enough to take some of it away.

"Poro, behind the debris. Keep moving."

Poro sprinted. The Bullet Punch smashed through the space he'd occupied and clipped broken stone instead. He ducked around another fragment, forcing Machoke to change direction.

"Rock Tomb."

More stone erupted. White didn't flinch this time. He watched where it landed.

Sera was trying to restrict Poro's movement. But every Rock Tomb also handed White another piece of board. One route closed. Two narrower ones opened.

"Powder Snow!"

Poro filled the new channels with white. Visibility dropped. Machoke turned toward the sound of movement.

White watched.

There.

"Growl."

Poro's cry came from the left. Machoke turned.

"Again."

The second came from farther right as Poro moved behind the stone. Machoke turned again.

Sera's eyes sharpened. White wasn't trying to weaken anything with Growl. He was giving Machoke information.

Bad information.

"Machoke. Don't chase the sound. Hold center."

White frowned.

Good. She'd seen it.

That was fine. Plans changed.

"Poro, Brine."

The stream came over the top of the debris. Machoke blocked with both arms, and water burst across its chest and shoulders.

"Icy Wind."

Frost raced over the soaked muscle. Machoke flexed and the ice cracked, but its movements slowed.

Only slightly. White didn't need much.

"Low Sweep," Sera said.

Machoke started toward Poro again, and White watched the approach. The center was no longer open. Rock fragments forced it into one of three paths. The western route was widest but crossed the patch White had already frozen. The middle route ran between two chunks of Rock Tomb. The eastern lane was narrow and wet.

Sera took the middle.

Of course she did. Most direct.

White had counted on it.

"Poro, Fury Swipes. Left rock."

Dawn leaned forward.

Poro didn't attack Machoke. His claws struck the fractured edge of the stone. Once. Twice. Three times.

The chunk shifted.

Machoke entered the passage.

"Again!"

Poro struck once more and the fragment slid into the opening. Machoke stopped short of colliding with it.

Only for a heartbeat.

White took it. "Icy Wind. Everything."

Poro spun and released the broadest blast he could manage. Cold swept through the passage. The wet eastern lane froze solid. Powder Snow hardened over the western slick. Frost coated the rocks and filled their cracks. Machoke raised an arm against the blast, but White wasn't trying to hurt it.

He was finishing the field.

Sera looked around. For the first time, Machoke had nowhere straightforward to go.

White felt his breathing settle. This was better. Not safe — never safe. But familiar.

Machoke still had all of its strength. That was the point. White didn't have to take it away.

He only had to make it inconvenient.

Sera smiled faintly. "Machoke. Clear the field."

White's eyes widened.

Machoke slammed both hands together, then drove them into the nearest rock. It exploded. A second followed. Then the third. Stone scattered across the arena under nothing but force.

Dawn's mouth fell open. White stared.

For a moment every careful lane he'd built disappeared under flying debris. The Juggernaut had done exactly what Juggernauts did.

It broke through the answer.

White looked at the wreckage. Then smiled, barely.

Because it hadn't restored the old field. It had made a new one.

"Powder Snow!"

Poro understood immediately. The attack swept across the debris, filling the uneven spaces between shattered stones. Snow hid the gaps. Hid the frozen water. Hid where the ground rose and dipped.

Machoke charged. "Bullet Punch."

"Poro, right."

Poro vanished behind one fragment. Machoke changed angle, and its next step landed on hidden ice. The foot slid.

Poro came out the other side. "Slash."

His claws struck Machoke's flank cleanly.

Machoke turned. "Karate Chop!"

"Back!"

Poro retreated behind another piece of stone. Machoke smashed through it.

But now it had to smash through it. That cost time.

White saw Candice leaning forward in the stands. Not surprised. Watching.

He knew what she was seeing. He had stopped trying to build one perfect setup. Every time Sera destroyed something, he used what was left.

That was yesterday's lesson. Control wasn't preserving the battlefield you wanted. It was deciding what mattered no matter what the battlefield became.

"Brine, under him!"

Water struck the ground at Machoke's feet.

"Icy Wind!"

Ice flashed across the surface. Machoke braced before it could slip.

Sera had learned too. "Machoke, jump."

It did.

White's eyes widened. The enormous Pokémon cleared the frozen patch entirely and came down far closer to Poro than he wanted.

"Low Sweep."

"Poro, Endure!"

The kick connected. Poro's body folded around the impact and flew backward, struck the snow, rolled twice, and stopped against one of the shattered rocks.

Dawn grabbed the railing. White's hands tightened.

"Poro."

The Cubchoo moved. Slowly. He pushed one paw beneath himself. Then another.

Machoke stood several yards away, breathing harder now but still solid.

Poro wasn't.

White looked across the field. He still had options. The eastern lane remained frozen. Two rocks could make another funnel. A Brine across the western side would connect the slick patches, and Powder Snow could hide the route. He could keep going. Make Machoke chase. Make it break more obstacles. Make it spend more movement reaching Poro than Poro spent escaping.

The Controller in him saw the next six decisions almost immediately.

White looked at Poro.

Poro swayed.

The next six decisions disappeared.

Yesterday came back to him. Poro barely standing while White insisted the setup was almost finished. Candice telling him that winning didn't make every decision good.

White raised one hand. "Poro."

The Cubchoo looked back.

"Enough."

Poro blinked. His eyes went toward Machoke, then back to White.

He wanted to continue. White could see that.

"No."

A moment passed. Then Poro relaxed.

Sera lifted one hand. "Battle concluded."

Dawn let out a breath loud enough for White to hear from the middle of the field.

White crossed the distance and crouched beside Poro, checking his flank, his legs, his shoulder while the Cubchoo leaned tiredly into his knee.

"You did well."

Poro made a quiet sound.

Across the arena, Machoke rolled one shoulder and gave Poro a small nod. Poro noticed. After a moment, he nodded back.

Sera recalled him and walked toward White with her clipboard tucked under one arm, her eyes moving over the frozen channels, the broken rocks, the half-hidden patches of ice.

"You identified my approach."

White looked up. "Juggernaut."

"When?"

"After Low Sweep."

Sera made a note without looking down at the clipboard, which White found faintly unnerving. "Why?"

"You kept forcing direct exchanges because you knew you'd win them."

"And what did you do about it?"

White glanced around the ruined field. "Stopped giving you direct exchanges."

A faint smile touched her face. "Better answer."

White stood.

Sera walked a few paces along the edge of the frozen eastern lane, looking down at it, before she turned back. "You could have continued."

"Yes."

"Could you have won?"

White considered it. "Maybe."

"How?"

He looked toward the eastern side of the arena. "Keep Machoke moving through the debris. Freeze the western route. Leave east open, then narrow it. Make him spend more time reaching Poro than Poro spends moving. Chip him every time he has to break something."

Sera nodded slowly. "Controller."

White said nothing.

"Then why stop?"

He looked at Poro again. "Because he was tired."

"That's all?"

"No."

Sera waited. She seemed comfortable doing it, which White suspected was a skill they taught.

He glanced at the field. "I had another setup."

"Controllers usually do."

He wasn't sure whether that had been praise. He continued anyway. "Poro would have had to keep taking hits while I built it."

"Could it have worked?"

"Maybe."

"Then why not try?"

White thought about yesterday. About the difference between controlling the field and being trapped inside his own plan.

"Because proving it worked wasn't worth what it would cost him."

Sera studied him for a moment. Then she wrote something on her clipboard.

"Good."

White tried to see what she'd written. She turned the clipboard away. "Evaluation complete."

"Did I pass?"

"You'll receive the final result after review."

White frowned.

Sera's mouth twitched. "League regulation."

White disliked her immediately.

Dawn laughed from the stands. Of course she had heard.

---

Twenty minutes later, White sat in the League office lobby with Poro curled beside him on the bench.

A League nurse had checked the Cubchoo and pronounced him bruised, tired, and otherwise fine. Dawn had told White he'd done well approximately four times since then. The first had been encouraging. The second had come with a detailed explanation. By the fourth, White had stopped pretending to listen.

Now she sat across from him with Nia in her lap, one foot bouncing rapidly against the floor.

White watched it. "Stop."

She stopped. Three seconds later it started again.

White looked toward Candice. "Can you make her stop?"

"No."

"You're the Gym Leader."

"She isn't in my Gym." Candice didn't bother opening her eyes.

Dawn frowned at both of them. "I'm waiting for your results. That's a legitimate activity."

"So am I."

"Exactly. And I'm doing it supportively."

"You're doing it loudly."

She smiled. "So you are nervous."

"I'm not."

"You keep looking at the door."

"That's where the results are."

Dawn turned toward Candice, triumphant. "He's nervous."

Candice smiled and said nothing at all, which White decided was worse than agreeing.

The door opened. All three of them looked up.

The administrative officer stepped into the lobby carrying a folder. "White?"

White stood.

Dawn stood too.

The officer looked at her.

Dawn slowly sat back down.

White approached the counter. The woman opened the folder. "Written examination, eighty-nine percent. Field competency, pass. Practical evaluation, pass."

White felt his shoulders loosen before he could stop them.

The officer looked up. "Overall result, pass. Effective immediately, you are registered with the Sinnoh League as an independently licensed trainer."

For a moment White simply stood there.

He'd expected it. He'd trained for it. Waited for it.

Hearing it was still different.

The officer placed a small card on the counter. White looked down. His photograph occupied one side.

It was terrible. Dawn had been right.

Below it sat his registration number, League affiliation, date of eligibility, and several other details he barely registered.

His attention stopped at the name.

WHITE

Nothing after it. No missing surname. No qualification. No note explaining that the name had been chosen because the original was gone.

Just White.

Years ago it had been the first thing he found to call himself. Now the League had printed it onto something that gave him the right to decide where he went next.

"Congratulations," the officer said.

White picked it up. "Thank you."

When he turned, Candice was already standing. Dawn barely let him reach them before she grinned. "Eighty-nine."

White stared at her. "You got ninety-six."

"I know."

"You've mentioned it."

"A few times."

"Too many."

Dawn pointed at the card in his hand, and the teasing dropped out of her voice. "You passed."

White looked down at it again. "Yeah."

Candice didn't say anything immediately. She stepped closer, took the license when White held it toward her, and studied it in silence.

For five years she'd signed the forms. Given permission. Answered questions when White couldn't. Written her name into spaces where somebody else's should have been.

Now she held the small piece of plastic that meant, in at least one important way, he didn't need permission anymore.

Her thumb passed once along its edge. Then she handed it back.

"Not bad."

White looked at her. "Not bad?"

"Eighty-nine."

Dawn laughed immediately. White narrowed his eyes.

Candice smiled. Then she pulled him into a hug.

White stiffened on instinct. Only for a moment.

Then he let her.

Her arms tightened. "Happy birthday," she said quietly.

White looked past her shoulder toward the snow falling beyond the lobby windows. His fingers closed around the license.

"Thanks."

Dawn stayed quiet.

Which meant she was learning.

Eventually Candice let him go. White stepped back and slipped the license carefully into his wallet.

Dawn lasted approximately one second. "So."

White looked at her.

"Licensed trainer."

"Apparently."

"Going to Twinleaf."

"Apparently."

"Traveling with me."

"Temporarily."

"Still counts."

White sighed. Nia chirped from her arms as though casting a vote. Poro raised his head from the bench.

White looked toward the doors. For years, leaving Snowpoint had belonged to the future.

Now the League had put his name on a card and told him the future could start whenever he wanted.

---

The Gym knew before White got back.

He realized this when the front doors opened and half the lobby applauded.

White stopped. Dawn nearly walked into him. "Oh."

Candice, standing behind both of them, looked entirely too innocent.

White turned his head. "You told them."

"I may have sent a message."

"When?"

"While you were waiting for the results."

"You didn't know I'd passed."

Candice smiled. "I was confident."

"That's worse."

Dawn leaned around him, eyes bright as she took in the room. "Okay, this is adorable. This is genuinely adorable, don't ruin it."

White looked back toward the lobby. Several of the Gym trainers had gathered near the reception area. A few were still in training clothes, one had clearly come straight from clearing the battlefield outside, and another held a tray of drinks balanced against her hip. Someone had moved the birthday banner from the residential hallway and hung it above the lobby entrance. FIFTEEN now had LICENSED written beneath it in smaller letters.

White stared at the addition. "Who did that?"

One of the younger Gym trainers raised a hand.

White looked at Candice.

She shrugged. "Team effort."

A cheer went up again when Poro emerged from behind White's legs. The Cubchoo startled, then immediately puffed himself up as though some portion of the applause must have been meant for him.

Dawn crouched beside him. "It was definitely for you too. Obviously. Mostly for you."

Poro looked extremely pleased.

White sighed and stepped farther inside.

The next several minutes became difficult to track. People congratulated him. Someone shook his hand. Someone else hugged him without warning and apologized only after White had gone rigid. Poro received considerably more attention than White did, which White considered an improvement. Nia accepted several congratulations despite having contributed nothing whatsoever to the exam, and Snover appeared from somewhere deeper in the Gym and attached himself to White's leg.

"You weren't even there," White told him.

Snover chirped.

"He says he supported you spiritually," Dawn said.

White looked at her. "You don't know what he said."

"No, but it sounded supportive. It had a very supportive tone."

"It didn't."

Snover chirped again, louder.

Dawn pointed triumphantly. "See?"

White looked down at the Pokémon clinging to him. Snover stared back.

"You're both a problem."

Dawn laughed and moved out of range before he could include Nia in the accusation.

The celebration was smaller than the morning had led him to expect. White suspected Candice had kept it that way on purpose. There were enough people to make the Gym feel busy, but never enough that he wanted to leave. Several trainers drifted back toward their duties after congratulating him. The rest gathered in the common room, where food had been set out.

The second cake had survived.

Mostly.

White stood in front of it for several seconds. The frosting leaned noticeably to one side.

Candice folded her arms. "Say it."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

Dawn appeared at his other shoulder. "It does tilt a little."

Candice looked at her. "You are becoming less welcome by the hour."

"I helped decorate it!"

"Exactly."

White studied the cake again. Blue frosting covered the top, with white peaks meant to resemble snowdrifts. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHITE had been written across the center, and beneath it, squeezed into much smaller letters, someone had added AND CONGRATS ON NOT FAILING.

White looked slowly toward Dawn.

She pointed at Candice.

Candice pointed back.

White stared at both of them.

Dawn broke first. "It was collaborative."

"Of course."

They made him cut the first piece. Candice made him take a larger one after deciding the first wasn't enough. Dawn stole frosting off the knife. Nia attempted the same and was stopped. Poro was given a small Pokémon-safe portion of his own and ate it far too quickly. Snover tried to take what was left of Poro's before Abomasnow, who had come into the room at some point during the commotion, lowered one enormous hand between them.

Snover reconsidered his life choices.

White sat near one end of the table with his plate in front of him and watched the room move around him.

He had never liked birthdays when they first started celebrating them. Not because he disliked the people. Because he hadn't understood what he was supposed to do with them. Everyone seemed to expect something from a birthday. Happiness. Excitement. Some visible acknowledgment that another year meant something.

White hadn't known what another year was supposed to mean when he couldn't remember any of the ones before Candice.

The first had felt like pretending. The second had been easier. By the third, he had stopped thinking about the day someone had chosen for him and started remembering what had happened on the same date the year before.

Candice burning food. Gym trainers arguing over presents. Poro eating something he shouldn't. Snow. Home.

It was his birthday because this was where they had put the memories.

Now there was something else attached to the date.

White touched the wallet in his pocket. The license was still there.

He had checked twice.

Dawn dropped into the chair across from him with another piece of cake and noticed the movement immediately. "You keep checking."

White removed his hand. "No."

"You do."

"I've had it for an hour."

"Exactly. New-license behavior. Textbook."

White looked at her. "Is that a thing?"

"Probably."

"You're making it up."

"Most things are made up at some point."

White considered that and decided not to encourage her.

Dawn took a bite of cake. "Does it feel different?"

"What?"

"Being licensed."

White looked around the room. "No."

She seemed disappointed for exactly one second. "Maybe it'll feel different when we leave."

White's eyes shifted toward her.

There it was again.

We.

Dawn said it naturally now, as though agreeing to go to Twinleaf had established some permanent grammatical rule. White didn't correct her.

Mostly because he was eating.

Probably.

"You realize," Dawn continued, "you can challenge official Gyms now."

"I know."

"Enter League tournaments."

"I know."

"Register more Pokémon under your own trainer ID."

"I know."

"Travel without Candice signing route permissions."

White stopped.

So did Dawn. Her expression softened. "Yeah."

White looked toward Candice. She stood on the other side of the room talking with two Gym trainers, laughing at something he hadn't heard, one hand resting against Abomasnow's arm.

She seemed to feel him looking. Her eyes found his almost immediately.

White looked away first.

Dawn followed his gaze and, for once, didn't comment. Instead she took another bite of cake and said, "My picture was worse."

White glanced back. "What?"

"On my license."

He stared at her.

Dawn smiled. "You were thinking about yours."

"I wasn't."

"You should be. It's terrible. You look like someone just told you the news."

White considered the photograph in his mind. She wasn't wrong. "How long until I can replace it?"

Dawn burst out laughing.

That ended the serious part of the conversation.

Later came the gifts.

White disliked gifts almost as much as he had once disliked birthdays. People gave them to him and then watched.

That was the problem. He never knew what expression they expected afterward.

The Gym trainers had learned this over the years. Most simply handed him something, accepted his quiet thanks, and moved on. A new set of gloves from one. A field notebook from another. Several packets of trail food. A compact sharpening stone for Poro's claws, for when he was older. Someone gave him a small emergency stove and then spent several minutes clarifying that this was not permission to live entirely on heated canned food.

Dawn gave him nothing.

White noticed eventually. Not because he expected anything from her.

Because she seemed very proud of not giving him anything.

He looked across the table. "Why are you smiling?"

"No reason. I'm a cheerful person. This is my resting state."

"You have a reason."

"I have several. None of them are any of your business."

White narrowed his eyes and waited.

Dawn lasted four seconds. "Fine. Your present isn't ready yet, and before you say anything, that is not a planning failure, that's a deliberate creative choice."

"I didn't ask for one."

"I know. That's part of why you're getting one."

"Then don't."

"Too late. It's in motion. There are moving parts." She took another bite of cake, entirely pleased with herself.

White sighed. "What is it?"

"Not telling you."

"Then why mention it?"

"Because now you're curious," Dawn said, "and you're going to have to sit with that."

"I'm not curious."

"You asked what it was."

White looked away. She had him there.

Candice waited until most of the others had finished before setting her gift down in front of him.

It wasn't wrapped.

White stared at the pack. It was dark gray, medium-sized, and built for long-distance travel rather than short trips around Snowpoint. Thick straps ran along the sides for bedrolls and field equipment. The base had been reinforced, the seams weatherproofed, and a row of smaller compartments ran across the front.

White looked at Candice. "I have a bag."

"That thing you call a bag is held together by repairs."

"Two."

"Three."

"Where?"

"The bottom."

White frowned and looked toward the hallway as though his old pack might somehow be visible through several walls.

Candice smiled.

Dawn leaned in to inspect the new one. "Oh, that's nice."

White opened the top. Inside sat a rolled sleeping bag, compact cooking equipment, a water filter, first-aid supplies, spare thermal layers he didn't need, climbing cord, waterproof matches, a map case, Pokémon care supplies, and several other things Candice had evidently decided he would fail to acquire on his own.

He removed the thermal shirt. "I don't need this."

Candice took it out of his hand and put it back. "I know."

"Then why is it here?"

"Emergency."

"I don't get cold."

"Other people do."

White looked at her. Candice met his eyes. "You might be traveling with someone."

Dawn raised a hand cheerfully from across the table. "Already happening."

White ignored her and pulled out something else. "Two blankets?"

"One's for Poro."

Poro looked up at the sound of his name.

"He has fur."

"So do you, apparently, and I still make you own blankets."

Dawn laughed. White kept digging.

"Three flashlights."

"One could break."

"And the second?"

"Could also break."

"The third?"

"See? You're learning."

White looked at her. Candice's smile widened.

He reached deeper into the pack and found something harder beneath the supplies. A small rectangular case.

White opened it.

Inside was a compass.

Not a new one. The metal around the edges had been scratched down by use, and the leather strap had been replaced at least once. The glass was clear but carried one small mark near the lower edge.

White knew immediately that it wasn't something Candice had bought for him.

He looked up. "You used this."

Candice's expression changed. "A long time ago."

White turned it over in his hand. Her initials had been scratched into the back.

C.S.

"You carried it?"

"On my first trips out of Snowpoint. Before Pokétches got good enough that everybody forgot how a compass works."

Dawn looked offended from across the table. "I know how a compass works."

Candice glanced at her. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

White ran his thumb over the scratched initials. "Why give it to me?"

Candice leaned one hip against the table. "Because batteries die."

White looked at her.

She held the expression for perhaps two seconds. Then smiled. "And because I wanted you to have it."

That was more honest.

White closed the case. "Thanks."

Candice's smile softened. "You're welcome."

He placed the compass carefully back inside the pack.

Dawn watched him do it and didn't say anything.

That was twice today.

She really was learning.

---

The celebration broke apart gradually after that. Trainers went back to work. Plates disappeared. Mr. Mime took responsibility for cleaning, which mostly consisted of preventing Snover from helping. Nia and Poro eventually ended up asleep against the same patch of wall after an entire afternoon spent pretending not to be tired.

White carried the new pack upstairs and set it beside his old one.

The difference was irritating.

Candice had been right. His old pack looked terrible.

White crouched and checked the bottom.

There were three repairs.

He frowned.

"She was right, wasn't she."

White looked over his shoulder. Dawn was leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded, having evidently been standing there a while.

"No."

She walked in anyway.

White pointed back toward the hall. "Knock."

"I did."

White looked at her.

"I thought about knocking. Seriously. Right up until I didn't."

"That isn't knocking."

"It's the spirit of knocking." She crouched down beside him. "I'll improve."

White returned to the pack. Dawn stepped closer and crouched beside him, and her voice came down a register. "That's a really nice gift."

White looked at the compass case still resting near the top. "Yeah."

Dawn's usual energy quieted. "You know she's excited for you."

"I know."

"And terrified."

White looked at her.

Dawn winced. "Okay. Maybe terrified is too strong."

"It is."

"Nervous?"

White didn't answer.

Dawn glanced back toward the hall. "She checks where you are every time you leave a room."

White had noticed. He always noticed. "She does that anyway."

"Not like today."

White closed the pack. The clasp clicked softly.

Dawn watched him. He expected another question.

Instead she smiled. "You're still coming to Twinleaf, right?"

White looked at her.

The sincerity lasted nearly five seconds before the familiar brightness came back into her face. "Because I've already started planning the route, and if you change your mind now I'm going to be extremely annoying about it."

"You weren't going to be otherwise?"

Dawn considered that seriously. "More annoying."

White sighed. "Yes."

Her eyes brightened. "Yes, you're coming?"

"I already agreed."

"I wanted confirmation."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes you say things like you regret them immediately."

White stared at her.

Dawn smiled.

He couldn't argue with that.

She stood and stretched her arms over her head. "Good. Then after the research tonight we should work out what we're bringing, because I've got route maps downstairs, and Rowan sent me a list of everything that has to go back with the samples, and Nia needs more food before we leave, and I should check the weather south of the city, and you need to decide how many changes of clothes you're packing because I refuse to travel with somebody who thinks one shirt is enough for an entire route."

White looked at her. "I own clothes."

"That's not what I said."

"You're planning like we're crossing Sinnoh."

Dawn smiled brightly. "Preparation."

"You sound like Candice."

Her expression changed instantly. "Oh, that's going to bother you."

"It already does."

Dawn laughed all the way into the hall.

White stayed where he was a moment longer, crouched beside the new pack, his old one sitting next to it looking considerably worse now that there was something competent to compare it to.

Poro had followed him upstairs at some point during the conversation and now lay stretched across the end of the bed, tired enough from the exam that he hadn't bothered getting involved. White reached over and scratched gently between his ears. One of them flicked under his fingers, but Poro didn't open his eyes.

The room itself hadn't changed. Same bed. Same shelves. Same window over Snowpoint. The same collection of things gathered slowly across five years, most of which White had stopped remembering hadn't always been there.

Only the pack against the wall was new.

White touched the license through his pocket.

That too.

A knock came from the open doorway.

White looked over. Candice stood there.

"You know the door's open."

"I was being polite."

"Dawn should try it."

"Don't ask for miracles."

White looked back toward his pack. Candice stepped into the room and stopped beside it, her eyes moving over the new bag and then the old one next to it.

"You checked the bottom."

White said nothing.

Her smile appeared immediately. "Three."

"Go away."

Candice laughed and sat on the edge of his bed. Poro shifted when the mattress moved, then settled again once he worked out who it was. Candice rested one hand on his back and stroked slowly through his fur.

For a while neither of them spoke.

That wasn't unusual. White had spent enough years around Candice to know her silence rarely meant she had nothing to say. Usually it meant she was deciding how to say it.

He waited.

Her gaze settled on the travel pack. "You really are going."

White glanced at her. "You told me to."

"I know."

"You can change your mind."

Candice looked at him.

White's mouth moved slightly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Very funny."

"I thought so."

"You're spending too much time around Dawn."

"It's been two days."

"Exactly. Imagine what you'll be like by Twinleaf."

White decided not to consider that.

Candice's fingers kept moving through Poro's fur. The humor stayed in her face, but something quieter sat underneath it — the same expression she'd worn outside when she told him to go, the same one she'd failed to hide while holding his license.

White knew better than to point it out.

After a moment she looked over. "You happy?"

The question caught him slightly off guard.

White considered it. He looked at the new pack. At his old one. At Poro sleeping between them. At the faint reflection of Snowpoint in the window.

"I think so."

Candice smiled. Not widely. "Good."

White glanced toward her. "You?"

"Ask me after you come back."

That answer sat between them for a while.

White didn't tell her he would. He didn't need to.

Candice knew.

Eventually she exhaled, gave Poro one last scratch behind the ear, and stood. "All right."

White looked up. Her expression had changed. Not dramatically, but enough.

The birthday was gone out of it.

"So," she said. "There's one more thing we need to do today."

White knew before she finished. His eyes shifted toward Poro.

The Cubchoo was awake now. Not fully — his head had lifted from the bed, ears angled toward Candice — but the heaviness from a moment ago had gone.

Candice noticed too, and didn't pretend otherwise. "Dawn's finished setting everything up downstairs. Nothing complicated. Rowan asked for a few comparison tests before she takes the samples back."

White stayed quiet.

Candice leaned against the doorframe. "We don't have to."

"I know."

"If Poro doesn't want to be in that room, he doesn't have to be."

Poro raised himself into a sitting position.

White looked at him. The reaction was smaller than yesterday. No backing away. No sudden panic.

But Poro knew what she meant.

That mattered.

White rested a hand against his side. "We'll go."

Candice watched him carefully. "You sure?"

White nodded.

Poro looked toward him. White waited.

After a moment, Poro climbed down from the bed.

Candice's eyes followed him to the floor. "All right," she said quietly.

She stepped back into the hallway. White followed, Poro close beside him.

They made it halfway to the stairs before Candice stopped. White nearly walked into her.

She looked back over one shoulder. "One rule."

"What?"

"If either of you wants it stopped, we stop."

White nodded.

"No arguing. No finishing the test because you got curious. No deciding you can handle five more minutes because Rowan might learn something useful."

White understood exactly who that was aimed at. "Okay."

Candice studied his face. White met her eyes.

After a moment she seemed satisfied. "Good."

She started down the stairs again.

The sounds of the Gym rose to meet them. Voices from the lobby. Someone moving equipment. Dawn talking somewhere below, fast enough that White couldn't make out words.

Ordinary sounds.

Then they reached the bottom.

Dawn stood near the far end of the training room with Nia beside her, the last of the celebration cleared off the nearest tables. Froslass hovered silently near Candice's usual work area.

And in the center of the table sat the silver case.

Poro stopped. Candice did too.

White felt the Cubchoo press closer to his leg.

For the first time since breakfast, nobody said anything.

Candice looked down at Poro, then at White. "Still okay?"

White stared at the case.

Something cold settled beneath his ribs. Not the comfortable cold of Snowpoint.

Something older.

He put one hand on Poro's head. "Yeah."

Candice nodded once. Then she walked toward the table.

White followed.

---

Dawn POV

Dawn had spent most of the afternoon telling herself that this part would be routine.

That had been easier before White and Poro walked into the room.

The training chamber Candice had given her was smaller than the Gym's main battlefield but large enough for several Pokémon to move around comfortably. Most of the usual equipment had been pushed against the walls, leaving a broad table beneath the overhead lights. Dawn had arranged Rowan's instruments across one end, checked every sensor twice, then checked the seals on the silver case a third time despite knowing perfectly well that she already had.

Nia sat near her feet, unusually quiet.

Froslass hovered beside one of the walls.

She had been there since Dawn started setting up, and it was beginning to bother her. The Ghost-type hadn't interfered. She hadn't approached the case or reacted to anything. She simply stayed several feet away, motionless apart from the slow drift of her body, her gaze fixed on the silver container as though she were waiting for it to do something.

Dawn had tried talking to her once.

Froslass hadn't looked away.

Then Candice came in with White and Poro behind her.

Poro stopped almost immediately.

Dawn noticed because yesterday he had done exactly the same thing. Not panic. Not yet. His steps simply ended. He stood close enough to White that one side of his body nearly touched his leg, staring at the case on the table.

White stopped too.

Candice looked between them. "Still okay?"

White's hand settled on Poro's head. For a second Dawn wondered whether he was answering for both of them.

Then Poro leaned slightly into his palm.

"Yeah."

Candice nodded, but she didn't move. "Same rule as upstairs. Either of you wants to stop, we stop. You don't need a reason."

"I know."

"I'm saying it again."

White looked at her.

Dawn was beginning to realize that a significant portion of the communication between those two consisted of staring at each other until one surrendered.

White surrendered first. "Okay."

Only then did Candice approach the table.

Dawn straightened automatically. "I haven't opened anything yet."

"I figured."

"I checked the seals again too."

"I figured that too."

Dawn looked at her. "You could at least pretend to be impressed."

"I am impressed."

"You don't sound impressed."

Candice smiled. "Very professional."

"Better. Thank you."

White moved closer, though Poro stayed half a step behind him. Nia looked from Dawn to Poro and seemed to be considering going over, and Dawn quietly touched the top of her head.

"Give him space."

Nia hesitated. Then sat.

Dawn turned back to the instruments. "Okay. Before we start, there's something Rowan wanted made clear."

White's attention stayed on the case. "That sounds reassuring."

"It probably won't be."

He looked at her.

Dawn winced. "Still working on how I phrase things."

Candice folded her arms. "What's different?"

Dawn rested a hand beside the nearest sensor. "We're not only measuring temperature or Ice-type energy. The material gives off something else."

White's eyes shifted toward her. "Something else."

"Energy. Actual energy." She paused, hunting for a way to say something Rowan had spent dozens of pages carefully refusing to define. "The instruments detect it. We can measure the intensity, compare fluctuations, track where it's concentrated, watch how it interacts with other energy. It's real in every way that matters scientifically."

Candice glanced toward the case. "But."

"But Rowan doesn't know what it is."

That got White's attention.

Dawn tapped the display. "It doesn't behave like residual Ice-type energy. Normally, what a move or a Pokémon leaves behind dissipates. Fast or slow depending on the material and the environment, but it goes." She shook her head. "This doesn't."

"How long?" White asked.

Dawn looked at the case. "Years."

Silence settled over the room.

"Those fragments have been out of Giant Chasm since the day you were found. They've been moved between facilities. Heated. Cooled. Kept away from Pokémon entirely. Exposed to every kind of energy Rowan could justify on a form." She spread her hands. "Whatever's inside them never goes away."

Candice frowned. "And Rowan thinks it's old."

"Very."

"How old?"

"He won't put a number on it."

That was technically true. Rowan hated assigning numbers to things he couldn't defend.

"But he thinks the energy predates the ice," Dawn added.

White's expression changed slightly.

Candice caught it. "Explain."

Dawn hesitated. "The best way I can put it is that the ice looks like something the energy made. Not the source of it. The crystal formed around it."

White looked toward the case again. "So whatever it is was there first."

"That's what Rowan thinks."

Poro shifted against White's leg.

Dawn glanced down at him before continuing. "And there's something else. The resonance doesn't look like ordinary Pokémon energy on the instruments. It's too stable. Too structured. Rowan ran it against every archived Legendary and environmental reading he could get permission to access."

Candice's brow rose. "That's a lot of permission."

"You know Professor Rowan."

"Fair."

"He found similarities in some ancient sites and relic readings. Not matches. Similarities. Energy that behaves like it was put into something rather than produced by it."

Dawn knew how that sounded. Mystical. Vague. Exactly the sort of thing she normally disliked, because there was no number attached to it.

Except here there were numbers. That was the unsettling part. The sensor didn't care whether something felt ancient. It just produced the same impossible reading every single time.

White watched her. "So you can measure something you don't understand."

"Basically."

"That's convenient."

Dawn frowned. "That's science."

Candice laughed quietly.

Dawn gestured at the instruments. "Rowan calls it an anomalous resonance, because he refuses to name anything before he understands it. I call it the resonance, because saying 'unidentified persistent anomalous energy signature' out loud every five minutes makes me want to lie down."

White nodded. "Better."

"Thank you."

Candice looked toward the case. "And this resonance reacts to Ice Pokémon."

"Sometimes."

That was the actual reason they were here.

Dawn opened Rowan's notebook. "The samples show small changes under Ice-type energy, but the results aren't consistent. Sometimes the temperature moves. Sometimes the lattice shifts. Sometimes the resonance climbs for a few seconds. Sometimes absolutely nothing happens."

White looked toward Froslass. "That's why she's here."

"Eventually."

Candice followed his gaze. Froslass still hadn't moved. "She's been watching it the whole time?"

Dawn nodded. "Pretty much since I brought the case in."

Candice's expression tightened.

White looked at Froslass.

The Ghost-type finally moved. Not toward the case.

Toward White.

She drifted across the room until she reached him, circled once around Poro, then stopped between them and the table.

Poro's ears flattened.

White watched her. "Froslass?"

She turned slightly toward him. Then looked back at the silver case.

Candice's face became more serious. "That's new."

Dawn resisted the immediate urge to start writing. Barely. "Do you know what she's sensing?"

"No."

"Has she ever reacted to White like this?"

"She's always noticed him."

White glanced toward Candice.

Dawn caught it. "Noticed how?"

Candice was quiet for a moment. "Ice-types act differently around him sometimes. Froslass more than most."

"She stares," White said.

Froslass looked at him. White stared back.

"Like that."

Dawn almost smiled.

Then Froslass turned toward the case again, and the humor went out of the room.

Candice rested one hand on the table. "Start with Glaceon."

Dawn nodded.

Routine. That was what this was supposed to be.

Glaceon came in a few minutes later and behaved exactly the way Dawn had hoped. Curious, alert, completely unafraid.

Dawn activated every instrument before opening the silver case.

Inside, secured within layered insulation, sat a transparent cylindrical vessel no longer than her hand. A fragment of pale material rested suspended within it.

Calling it ice had always felt slightly wrong. Parts of it were almost perfectly clear, while others were cloudy enough to hide whatever lay behind them. Pale veins twisted through the center in patterns that never looked quite identical twice. Frost coated the inside of the vessel despite the room's controlled temperature.

Beside Dawn, the resonance monitor came alive.

A low tone. Numbers.

White looked toward the display. "It's already reading it."

"Always does."

Dawn adjusted the scale. The line oscillated slowly, almost rhythmically.

White stared at it. "That's the energy?"

"The measurable part of it."

There were other things the equipment couldn't capture. The strange heaviness Dawn sometimes felt standing near the open case. The way looking at the sample too long gave her the irrational impression that something impossibly far away was looking back.

She had never mentioned those to Rowan. They weren't data.

Probably.

White inhaled softly.

Dawn looked toward him. His expression hadn't changed.

Poro's had.

The Cubchoo moved backward. Only one step.

Candice saw it immediately. "Poro?"

He didn't look away from the sample.

White crouched beside him.

Dawn waited. After several seconds, Poro stayed where he was.

White stood again. "Keep going."

Candice looked at him carefully. White nodded once.

Dawn returned to the equipment.

Glaceon's first controlled release of Ice energy passed across the containment vessel.

The sample's temperature dropped by less than half a degree. The lattice shifted slightly.

And the resonance rose.

Dawn leaned closer. "Four percent."

White looked at her. "Four percent what?"

"Intensity above baseline."

"Meaning?"

"It noticed."

White frowned.

"Scientifically."

"That didn't make it better."

Dawn smiled despite herself.

A second exposure produced nearly the same result. The resonance climbed, held for several seconds, then eased back to baseline. Dawn recorded everything.

Abomasnow came next.

His presence made the room feel immediately smaller. White stood a little straighter when Candice's ace entered. Poro relaxed slightly too, familiarity apparently stronger than his discomfort.

Dawn increased the sensor range before beginning.

Abomasnow lowered one enormous hand and released a tightly controlled pulse of cold toward the vessel.

The temperature plunged. Frost spread over the containment glass.

The resonance monitor climbed. Eight percent. Nine.

Then stopped.

Dawn frowned. "That's strange."

Candice looked toward her. "Why?"

"Abomasnow used a lot more energy than Glaceon."

White understood first. "But the resonance didn't increase proportionally."

Dawn glanced at him. "Exactly."

Abomasnow had produced several times the Ice energy. The resonance had barely reacted twice as strongly.

"So raw power matters," White said.

"Maybe."

"But not much."

"Maybe."

White looked annoyed.

Dawn smiled. "Now you sound like Rowan."

"That's worse."

Candice laughed.

Abomasnow stepped away.

Froslass had not taken her eyes off the case.

Candice looked toward her. "Your turn."

Froslass didn't move.

Dawn looked between them. "Froslass."

Slowly, the Ghost-type approached. Her usual graceful drift had changed somehow, and Dawn couldn't identify what felt wrong about it until she realized Froslass was approaching the vessel the way another Pokémon might approach something sleeping.

Carefully. Quietly.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the fragment.

White's attention sharpened. Poro pressed against his leg again.

Froslass stopped just short of the table.

Candice's voice softened. "You don't have to."

Froslass looked toward her trainer. Then back toward the sample.

A thin current of icy air formed around her hands.

Dawn leaned toward the monitors. "Whenever you're ready."

Froslass released it.

It wasn't powerful. Dawn knew that before the instruments confirmed it. A small Icy Wind, barely more than a breath, passed across the vessel.

The reaction was immediate.

The temperature inside dropped three degrees.

The resonance monitor screamed. Not literally, but the sharp warning tone that replaced its quiet pulse was close enough.

Dawn froze. "Thirty-seven percent."

Candice's head snapped toward her. "What?"

"Thirty-seven above baseline."

The fragment changed. A pale branch snapped outward from its center like a crack racing through glass. Another followed. And another.

The resonance climbed to forty-one. Then held.

Dawn stared.

Froslass recoiled.

"Wait." Candice's voice stopped Dawn before she reached the next control.

Froslass had backed away from the table. The Ghost-type stared at the sample with an expression Dawn had never seen from her.

Unease.

The new crystalline branches remained.

Dawn looked between Froslass and the monitor. "Her output was lower than Abomasnow's."

"I know."

"The reaction was more than four times stronger."

Candice's attention stayed on Froslass. "We're not repeating it."

Dawn almost argued. Then she looked at the Pokémon again. "Okay."

She recorded the reading.

White stared at the branches inside the glass. "Why her?"

Dawn shook her head. "I don't know."

Ghost typing. Individual resonance. Something about Froslass's particular relationship with cold. Something about White. Something older than all of it. There were too many possibilities and no way to choose between them.

Then the monitor chirped.

Dawn turned. The reading was climbing again.

Forty-two. Forty-four.

She frowned. Nobody was using a move.

"That's not right."

Candice looked toward the display. "What?"

"The resonance is increasing."

"From Froslass?"

"No. Her energy's gone."

Forty-seven.

The pale branches inside the vessel lengthened.

Poro made a small sound.

Dawn looked toward him.

The monitor jumped. Fifty-two.

Dawn stopped breathing for a second. "Poro?"

Candice's eyes sharpened.

Dawn looked at the Cubchoo, then back at the reading. Poro shifted closer to White.

Fifty-eight.

The crystalline branch inside the vessel pressed against the glass.

Then changed direction. Toward him.

Nobody spoke. Dawn's pulse picked up. "White, move left."

Candice looked at her.

"I'm checking something."

White hesitated, then stepped sideways.

The resonance barely changed. Fifty-seven. The branch stayed where it was.

"Back."

White returned. Still nothing.

Then Poro followed him.

Sixty-three.

Dawn stared. "No way."

Candice's voice went very quiet. "Dawn."

"It's Poro."

The Cubchoo stopped. The resonance stabilized.

Dawn looked at him. "Move him."

White didn't. He looked toward Candice.

Candice was already staring at the monitor.

Poro took one cautious step on his own.

Sixty-eight.

The crystalline branch turned toward him.

Dawn felt the hair rise along her arms. The instruments were measuring it. That was what made it so much worse. There was nothing imagined about any of this. An energy that had sat unchanged for years, one Rowan believed might have existed long before the ice that held it, was moving in measurable response to a Cubchoo standing several feet away.

"It's responding to him."

Candice moved immediately. "Close it."

Dawn reached for the containment controls.

Then Poro growled.

Low. Frightened.

White turned. "Poro."

The Cubchoo's fur stood along his back. His claws dug into the floor as he stared at the crystal.

The resonance climbed. Seventy. Seventy-five.

The warning tone changed again.

The crystal extended.

Poro recoiled.

A burst of cold exploded out of him.

Icy Wind. Not commanded. Instinctive.

It struck the table.

Candice swore. Dawn threw one arm across her face as frost swept over the instruments and loose papers scattered.

The monitors spiked. For an instant every display filled with numbers.

Then the warning tone became one continuous note.

Dawn lowered her arm.

The reading made no sense. One hundred forty-three percent above baseline. Then one hundred sixty. Then the scale adjusted itself automatically.

The resonance wasn't only inside the container anymore.

Dawn stared at the auxiliary sensor. It was detecting the same signature outside the vessel.

"No."

A pale line spread through the ordinary frost where Poro's Icy Wind had struck. Not merely similar in appearance. The instrument beside it registered the same frequency pattern. The same impossible persistence.

The same ancient resonance.

Weaker. But unmistakable.

Dawn stepped forward without realizing she'd moved. "Poro did that."

"Dawn."

Candice sounded distant.

The line spread another inch. It looked wrong among the ordinary frost — too clear, too still, carrying the same peculiar depth as the sample.

And the sensor could see it. Measure it. Prove it existed.

Something that belonged in an old legend was tracing itself across a laboratory instrument and producing decimals.

Then Dawn looked at Poro.

He was trembling. White had both hands against his sides now.

And White himself had gone completely still.

Not his normal stillness. Different.

His eyes had lost focus.

"White?"

He didn't answer.

Candice was beside him immediately. "White."

Cold.

Not Snowpoint. Not the Gym.

Dark stone beneath him.

Poro screaming.

Ice climbing between them, too quickly.

A wall.

Something enormous beyond it.

Pale eyes.

Empty.

Then movement behind him. A man. Turning. Running.

Leaving.

White inhaled sharply.

The room came back. His hand slipped from Poro's fur.

Candice caught his shoulder. "Hey."

White blinked.

Dawn stared at him. His face looked wrong. Not pale — White was always pale.

Absent. As though he had come back a second later than everything else in the room.

Candice leaned closer. "White."

"I'm fine."

Too fast.

Candice's expression hardened. "No."

White looked at her.

Behind them, Dawn's monitors kept chiming. The external resonance had begun to decrease, but far too slowly for ordinary move residue.

Her mind was already shouting at her. Record it. Measure the decay. Determine whether Poro had generated the resonance or transmitted it. Compare the spectral pattern against the original fragment. One more reading could tell them something enormous —

"The external signature's still holding. If I can just get one more—"

"Done."

Candice didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.

Dawn stopped.

Candice stood with one hand on White's shoulder and the other resting against Poro's back.

"We're done."

Dawn looked at the displays. Then at Poro.

He was still trembling. White had recovered enough to focus on him now, one hand moving slowly through his fur.

Dawn's excitement curdled in her stomach.

She closed the containment shutters. Reinforced metal slid over the vessel. The resonance from the main sample vanished from the exposed sensors, leaving only the faint external trace Poro had somehow made.

Dawn shut down the active systems and let the instruments preserve their recordings automatically.

Candice waited until every lock engaged. Then she looked at White. "What happened?"

White stayed crouched beside Poro. "Memory."

Candice went still. Dawn did too.

"How much?"

"Not much."

"What did you see?"

Poro pressed closer.

White stared at the floor. "Ice."

Candice waited.

"Poro."

Another pause.

"Someone running."

Something passed across Candice's face. Dawn saw it. White probably did too.

"The same one?"

White nodded.

The room fell quiet.

Froslass floated closer and lowered herself until she was level with Poro. She studied him for several seconds, then placed one hand carefully against the Cubchoo's head.

Poro didn't pull away.

Dawn looked toward the sensors again.

The external resonance still existed. Faint. Decaying. Measurable.

That detail refused to leave her alone.

Until tonight, the resonance had existed only inside preserved fragments from Giant Chasm. Now Poro had produced something indistinguishable from it outside containment.

Maybe produced. Maybe transmitted. Maybe woken.

She didn't know.

And underneath every one of those possibilities sat the part she couldn't put into a graph. Whatever this energy was, it felt old. Not old like a building or an artifact. Older than that. The instruments reduced it to numbers and frequencies and curves, and Dawn couldn't shake the impression that the machines were measuring something they had no language for. Something that had existed long before anyone thought to build a machine capable of noticing it.

"Professor Rowan is going to want to see this."

Candice looked toward her.

Dawn realized immediately how that had sounded. "He'll see the data."

Candice's eyes moved to White and Poro. "That's what we're bringing him."

The meaning was clear.

Dawn nodded. "Right."

Candice's expression softened slightly. "Good." She glanced at the sealed case. "And tell him the rest of the schedule's cancelled. He's not getting his three days."

Dawn opened her mouth.

Candice raised an eyebrow.

"Right," Dawn said again.

White eventually stood. Poro stayed beside him, exhausted from the exam and now from whatever had just happened, but no longer shaking.

Dawn approached carefully. "White?"

He looked at her.

"I'm sorry."

His brow furrowed. "For what?"

"For almost continuing."

He was quiet for a moment. Then shrugged. "You stopped."

"Candice stopped me."

"Still stopped."

That didn't make Dawn feel much better.

White looked toward the sealed case. "What happened to Poro's attack?"

Dawn glanced at the instruments. "I don't know."

White looked unimpressed.

"That's the actual answer. His Icy Wind interacted with the sample, and the frost it produced started carrying the same resonance."

"The same energy."

"As far as the instruments can tell."

White looked down at Poro. "Poro made it."

"I don't know that."

Dawn caught herself before curiosity turned into certainty. "He caused it. That's all we know. He might have generated it himself. The sample might have changed his Ice energy. He might have pulled some of the resonance out of the sample somehow." Her eyes went back to the fading reading. "Whatever happened, the instruments treated the two signatures as the same phenomenon."

Candice folded her arms. "And we're not finding out which one tonight."

White glanced at her. "I didn't ask."

"You were thinking."

He stared at her.

Dawn almost smiled.

Candice looked toward the equipment. "Save everything. Send Rowan the full readings once you've checked them. He can decide what he wants to ask after he's seen the data."

Dawn nodded. "And if he wants another test?"

Candice's answer was immediate. "Then he asks."

White looked toward her.

Candice met his eyes. "You decide."

Something in White's expression loosened. "Okay."

Dawn began packing the instruments.

This time, when she checked the seal on the silver case, she did it only once.

Froslass stayed beside White and Poro. Nobody asked her to move.

And on Dawn's final monitor, one faint line held above zero for several minutes longer than any ordinary Ice-type energy had any right to.

---

White POV

Poro didn't leave White's side for the rest of the evening.

That wasn't unusual enough for anyone else in the Gym to notice. White noticed. Normally Poro wandered. He followed Snover when the younger Pokémon found something interesting, tolerated Nia's attempts to involve him in whatever game she'd invented that hour, or disappeared downstairs whenever he suspected food.

Tonight he followed White upstairs.

When White sat on the edge of his bed, Poro climbed up beside him. When White moved to the window, Poro moved too. Eventually White stopped pretending not to notice and sat back against the headboard with the Cubchoo tucked close against his leg.

Neither of them had said much since the testing room.

That was easier for White.

He wasn't sure it was easier for Poro.

The Cubchoo stared down at his paws. White watched him do it for several seconds.

"Poro."

One ear moved.

"Stop."

Poro looked up.

White nodded toward his paws. "You're thinking too much."

Poro stared at him.

White registered the hypocrisy almost immediately. "Don't."

Poro lowered his head again.

White sighed and rested a hand between his ears.

The strange frost hadn't come back. Poro had tried once downstairs, before Candice noticed — a tiny breath of cold against the floor, weak enough that it barely qualified as Powder Snow. Ordinary frost had formed along the stone and melted at the edges almost immediately.

Nothing pale. Nothing ancient. Nothing that made Rowan's instruments start screaming.

Candice had told him not to try again.

Poro hadn't argued.

White suspected that was because he was afraid it might work.

White understood that too.

His own memory had come back in pieces small enough to feel deliberate about it. Ice. Poro. The enormous shape beyond the wall. A man turning away from him.

Running.

That part wasn't new. That was what bothered him. The details around it shifted every time the memory surfaced, but the ending never did.

Someone had been there.

Someone had left.

White closed his eyes.

The memory didn't come back.

Good.

A knock sounded against the doorframe.

White opened his eyes. Candice stood in the doorway holding two mugs.

"You know it's open."

"I've decided we're pretending knocking matters in this house."

"Dawn?"

Candice smiled. "Influence goes both ways."

She stepped inside and handed him one of the mugs. White looked into it.

Hot chocolate.

He looked back at her.

"It's your birthday."

"I already had cake."

"Those are unrelated."

White took the mug.

Candice sat on the edge of the bed. Poro immediately shifted until he was wedged between them, one side pressed against White and the other against Candice.

Candice looked down. "Subtle."

Poro ignored her.

For a while they drank without speaking. White appreciated that she didn't start with the obvious questions.

She asked about Poro's bruising from the exam first. White told her the League nurse had said he was fine. She asked whether his side still hurt, and Poro objected when she checked anyway.

Only after several minutes did she look toward White. "Headache?"

"No."

"Dizzy?"

"No."

"Cold?"

White looked at her.

Candice sighed. "Different cold."

He understood. "No."

"Anything since downstairs?"

"No."

She nodded.

White stared into his drink. The chocolate was too hot to actually enjoy, but he'd learned years ago that mentioning that only made Candice threaten to put marshmallows in it.

He drank anyway.

"What did you remember?"

White's fingers tightened slightly around the mug. "Same thing."

Candice waited.

"Mostly."

"What was different?"

White looked toward the window. Snow moved lazily beyond the glass, ordinary and soft against the darkening sky.

"Poro was there."

Candice glanced down at him. "You knew that already."

"I knew he was there."

That wasn't the same thing. The memory had given him sound this time.

Poro screaming.

White swallowed. "He was scared."

Candice's hand moved slowly along Poro's back. "He probably was."

White nodded. "The wall was between me and someone else."

Candice's hand stopped for half a second. Then continued. "The man?"

"Probably."

"Could you see him?"

"No."

"Anything you hadn't remembered before?"

White thought about it. Not the face. Not a name. Not enough.

"He was trying to do something."

Candice looked over.

White frowned, trying to hold the shape of it without forcing it. "Before he ran."

That was new. Barely. But new.

"What?"

"I don't know."

Candice didn't push.

White appreciated that more than he could have said.

He looked down at Poro. "Then he left."

The Cubchoo's ears flattened.

Candice saw. White did too.

Neither of them commented.

The silence lasted longer this time.

Eventually Candice said, "You know you don't have to leave tomorrow."

White looked at her.

There it was. Not the memory. Not the experiment. The other thing she'd been carrying around all evening.

"You got your license today. That doesn't mean you have to use it immediately. Rowan can wait. Dawn can wait. Twinleaf isn't going anywhere."

White held her gaze. "I know."

Candice nodded slowly. "If you want a few days, take a few days."

White looked toward the travel pack she'd given him. It sat beside his old one near the wall, already looking like it belonged there less than anything else in the room.

This morning it had meant something uncomplicated. Leaving.

Now the silver case downstairs sat beside it in his thoughts.

For a moment, White wondered whether Candice thought that should change everything.

Maybe it should. The sample had reacted to Poro. Poro had produced something that shouldn't have existed outside the container. White had remembered Giant Chasm again. Rowan would have questions.

White had questions.

It would have been easy to turn south because of that. Follow the sample. Follow the research. Follow whatever faint trail his missing life had decided to leave behind.

White didn't want that to be the reason.

He'd wanted to leave before Dawn arrived. Before the case was opened. Before the monitor showed anything at all.

He looked back at Candice. "I still want to go."

Something in her expression softened. "Even after today?"

"Yes."

"Because of today?"

White understood the question immediately. "No."

Candice watched him.

White glanced toward the pack. "I wanted to go yesterday."

A small smile appeared. "Good answer."

"It wasn't for you."

"I know."

That made it better.

Candice leaned back slightly and looked toward the ceiling. "I was going to tell you that if you said you were going because of the samples, I'd have made you wait a week out of spite."

"You can't."

Her eyes narrowed.

White remembered the license in his wallet. Then looked at her.

Candice pointed at him. "Do not get smug because you've been legally independent for six hours."

"I'm not smug."

"You are internally smug."

White's mouth shifted.

Candice saw it. "Terrible. One day with Dawn and you're already becoming difficult."

"I was difficult before."

"True."

Poro made a quiet noise between them. Candice looked down and scratched under his chin. "You still want to go too?"

Poro looked at White.

White didn't answer for him.

After a moment, Poro leaned forward and put both paws against White's leg.

Candice smiled. "I'll take that as a yes."

Another knock came from the doorway.

This one was real.

White and Candice both looked over. Dawn stood there holding Rowan's notebook against her chest.

White glanced toward Candice. "She learned."

Dawn frowned. "I can knock."

"You didn't earlier."

"I've grown."

"Fast."

She came in anyway, though some of her usual energy was missing. Not gone. Contained. Nia stayed out in the hallway, having apparently decided Poro didn't need another visitor.

Dawn looked toward him first. "How's he doing?"

"Fine."

Poro looked up.

Dawn smiled at him. "Good."

She didn't approach. That was probably deliberate.

White noticed.

"So," she said, hugging the notebook a little tighter, "I checked the recordings."

Candice's expression changed. "You're done checking them?"

"For tonight."

"Good answer."

Dawn gave her a small smile before looking at White again. "I thought you'd want to know one thing."

White waited.

She opened the notebook, though she didn't really seem to need it. "The resonance Poro made outside the container wasn't just similar to the sample."

White felt Poro shift against his leg.

Dawn continued carefully. "The frequency profile matched. Same decay pattern, same response across every sensor that was still working properly. The intensity was much lower, obviously, but within the equipment's margin of error—"

She hesitated.

"It's the same signature."

White looked at Poro. The Cubchoo stared back.

"You're sure?"

Dawn nodded. "As sure as I can be without pretending we know what caused it."

Candice folded her arms. "Which we don't."

"No." Dawn shook her head. "We really, really don't."

White looked at the notebook. "So he made the same energy."

Dawn corrected him immediately. "We measured the same energy."

White frowned.

"That's different."

"Very."

Dawn moved slightly closer, enthusiasm creeping back into her voice despite everything. "It could have come from Poro. It could have been pulled out of the sample. His Ice energy might have temporarily changed after interacting with the resonance. There might be some kind of sympathetic response between them. I don't know yet."

She stopped herself. Then added, more quietly, "And we're not testing again tonight."

Candice looked satisfied.

White noticed. "So Rowan gets this?"

"The data, yes. I'm sending copies tonight. The original files and the sample go back with us."

White caught the word.

Us.

Again.

Dawn seemed not to notice she'd said it. Or had decided it no longer required discussion.

Candice noticed. Her eyes flicked briefly toward White.

He ignored both of them. "Does Rowan know yet?"

"Not everything. I sent him a short priority message so he knows something unexpected happened, but I want the readings organized before I send him conclusions."

White looked at her. "You don't have conclusions."

Dawn blinked. Then smiled slightly. "Exactly."

Candice laughed.

Dawn looked toward Poro again. "For what it's worth, Professor Rowan is going to be very interested."

Poro's ears lowered.

Dawn caught it instantly. "In the data," she added. "Not in making you do anything. He's not like that. I wouldn't have brought it here if he was."

Poro watched her.

Dawn crouched several feet away rather than coming closer. "I mean it."

After a moment, Poro relaxed.

White looked at her. "Thanks."

Dawn's expression brightened. "You're welcome."

Candice stood. "All right."

Both of them looked at her. She took White's half-finished mug out of his hand.

"Hey."

"You haven't touched it in ten minutes."

"I was going to."

"No, you weren't."

She collected her own mug too and headed for the door. Dawn stepped aside.

Candice paused in the doorway and looked back at White. The seriousness from earlier had eased out of her face.

"Rowan can have his ancient mysteries tomorrow."

White raised an eyebrow.

Candice nodded toward the hall. "Tonight you're still turning fifteen."

Dawn smiled.

White looked down at Poro. The Cubchoo had finally settled again, his head resting across White's leg. White ran a hand through his fur.

"Okay."

Candice smiled. "Good. There's cake left."

Dawn straightened immediately. "There is?"

White looked at her. The subdued researcher vanished in about half a second.

"What? It was good."

"It was burnt."

"That was the first one."

"Debatable."

Dawn followed Candice into the hallway, already arguing.

White stayed on the bed a moment longer with Poro.

Their voices carried down the stairs. Ordinary. Loud. Familiar enough already that White could tell which one was speaking without seeing them.

Poro lifted his head.

White looked toward the door. Then down at him.

"Come on."

Poro climbed into his arms. White stood and followed the others downstairs, holding him close against his chest, feeling the small steady heartbeat going alongside his own.

---

A/N: Hello everyone!!! I'm FINALLY done with chapter 2.. I know, I said that I was already pretty much done with it, but I decided to add a few things and then those few things turned into a lot of things, and then I wanted to change a few others, and so I basically ended up rewriting the chapter. I hope you guys like my interpretation of how I think battles would ACTUALLY be taught in the Pokemon universe. Obviously, I modeled the "Four Battler Archetypes" after actual competitive strats, like stall teams, or things that I feel would work if Pokemon battles were actually real. I was pretty nervous about actually including this pseudo nen ability like system into my fic (I'm not entirely sure how people would react to it) but my friend convinced me to add it in anyways since hey, it's literally my creative work. So why not! As always, please feel free to leave any thoughts, critiques, and comments behind (I love reading them) and I'll see you guys next time!!!

 

[BenevolentPumpkin]

You don't KNOW how excited I was when I saw that this fic updated. I also love the idea about the 4 strategies, it adds some nice world building and storytelling to the story. I cant wait to see where you bring Whites and Poros story. Much love , and I cant wait until you update again.