One, Two, Three

The plan is simple enough.

One : Catch an Applin.
Two : Hand Gloria said Applin the next time they meet.
Three : Casually say, "Heeeey!" (yes, with the "hey" dragged out like that.) "I got you a gift. For being a great friend and a supportive rival. By the way, mate, you're looking amazing today, I love that new look you have going on, did you get that parka at Motost—"

No, no, scratch that.

One : Catch an Applin.
Two : Hand Gloria the Applin.
Three : Thank her without going off on a ramble about parkas, or how good she looks in them.

And four, be well on my way to Wyndon by the time she checks to see what's inside. That way, if she doesn't feel the same way, it won't be awkward, and he can curl up on a bench and cry his eyes out at a safe distance of about ten miles.

Hop stares at the Pokeball sitting in his palm. Step one: done.

Now for the hard part.

This is all a bit more complicated than he likes. He kind of hoped it wouldn't come to this, that he could just take things sitting, let this unexpected development roll over him like a wave, and dissipate.

That is, until yesterday.

Yesterday, Hop caught Gloria and Raihan chatting at the door to Hammerlocke Gym. Sand gathered in the folds of their clothes and left trails on the floor, Gloria laughing with every other sentence, Raihan beaming without a trace of his usual smarm. It left no question about the outcome of their match.

That's my rival! he thought, an eager smile spreading on his face. The only one worthy of facing me!

It took all of five seconds, and two more chuckles out of Gloria, for his thoughts to swing to holy hell, to, has she always been so bloody adorable? to, I need her to notice me right this very instant?

That was when he decided to run into the fray, calling out her name.

Here's the thing with Hop: when he admires someone, the first and only thing he thinks to do is to impress them. Leon often teases him about it, about how he goes into "brag mode" whenever there's an esteemed guest over, talking about his trophy-studded future like it's already carved in stone.

As Gloria and Raihan whirled around to face the source of the shout, he felt the switch flip right away, all the lights in his head coming on. His mouth began to move of its own accord, levelling taunts at the second best battler Galar, eyes darting every two seconds to the goggling trainer beside him to see if she was reacting.

"I'm gonna beat you! And Gloria!" he finished with a grin, folding his arms. "And even Lee!"

Gloria laughed. "I'll see you at the semifinals, then," she answered, echoing his grin. A sudden pang pierced his heart like a burning arrow, one that brought his high-flying pride hurtling down in a fireball of confusing thrill and embarrassment.

He looked away, trying not to look like he was looking away. "You bet!" he said. "We'll meet at the station!"

It wasn't until Raihan's hand fell on his shoulder to steer him away that he snapped out of his daze. "Your turn to take on the gym, kid," he said with a fanged smirk. "You don't wanna keep Gloria waiting, do ya?"

Half an hour later, Hop walked out of what had proven a successful Gym Challenge—resoundingly so, if he could say so himself, capped off with a sliver of a win over Raihan's ten-storey Duraludon. He glanced about for any sign of Gloria, just in case she had yet to run off and they could walk together or something. But she was nowhere to be found, so he wound his way up the street and back to his hotel, just an ounce dejected.

That was about when his Rotom phone flew up in his face, flashing him a text message from his brother that bore not congratulations, but the following accusation:

rai says you have a crush on gloria 👀

what? NOOOOOOOO!

His fingers were a blur as he tapped out his answer, face already heating up with indignation. She's my rival! I don't have a crush on my my rival. That can't happen. It's not allowed...

Cut to the present. Hop doesn't do denial very well; it has taken him all of two days and approximately twenty hours of daydreaming about Gloria and berating himself for it to figure out that it has, indeed, happened—and that it may, in fact, be allowed.

He clutches at his face as if it will stop the blushing. Well, it is time. Time for him to be a grown up about it, to come clean to her, and then maybe not break down in tears when she says no. But he knows the cardinal rule he must hold to in all this: he cannot make Gloria feel cornered. He's had the agony of watching Leon bungle up his romantic endeavours enough times, and he won't go down that same ruinous path.

Which is why this entirely-too-elaborate plan is important.

Hop casts one last look at his hand, and that fateful Pokeball cradled in it. "Appley...what should I do if she doesn't like you?"

Knocking on your crush's hotel room door is more nerve-wracking than the telly dramas will have you believe. For a moment, Hop wonders how Leon ever managed to do this. Lee has related that story—the one about Raihan and flowers and a too-small umbrella on a particularly wet winter's night—so many times that he could probably retell it word for word by now.

It's a good thing Gloria's hotel door is indoors, at least. Hop isn't sure if he could stand being sopping wet in addition to this maddening anxiety. He cranes his head close to the door frame and strains to make out any telltale sounds from inside.

His heart leaps into his throat at the click of the lock, and he stumbles away just in time for Gloria to open the door a crack and poke her head through.

"Hop!" Her eyes light up, and she starts frantically combing down her unruly brown mop with her fingers and futilely pressing wrinkles out of her pyjamas. "What brings you here?"

"Not much, Gloria! How d'you do?" He flashes a grin he hopes doesn't look as nervous as he feels, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just have a—"

"—a problem?"

"No, no problems here! It's just—" He starts fumbling about in his pocket as he speaks.

"Does something need my attention?"

Yes, me! he thinks desperately, but miraculously keeps the words off his tongue. Finally pulling the Pokeball from his pocket, he holds it up in cupped palms. "It's a gift from yours truly—for being the best friend and the best rival!"

Gloria gasps, mouth forming an "o". As she takes it in, her shock melts into a blindingly bright smile. "Aw, for me? You're the sweetest..."

She reaches out tentatively, and Hop takes it as invitation to slap the ball into her palm—maybe a little too hard, though his enthusiasm only wins another heart-pounding laugh.

Turning the Pokeball about in her hand, she asks the inevitable question: "What Pokemon is in here?"

"It's a surprise," he says, fingers scrubbing at his nape again. "You should check when I'm gone. And speaking of being gone, I shan't be bothering you any longer, see you!"

"Wait—"

Without waiting a second more for his already-teetering composure to slip away entirely, Hop is off like a Scorbunny down the hallway, leaving Gloria gaping after him.

She remains stock-still in her doorway for several minutes, eyes pinned on the Pokeball in her palm, as if it might disappear if she looks away. Just like Hop just did, a minute ago.

Did he really just do that—show up at her hotel door at 9 o'clock in the evening just to drop off a gift?

And not just any gift, but a Pokemon . She cannot begin to imagine what prompted it. But even if this were not some wildly random gesture, he could have gone with something simple—a bag of berries, a few potions, maybe even a new stock of Pokeballs would've been enough to earn her gratitude for days.

But no, he went out and caught a whole Pokemon for her.

The thought makes her giddy, like her legs might turn to jelly, like the whole of her might melt into a puddle of jelly, really.

Slamming the door shut, Gloria launches herself onto the hotel bed and rolls to the other end, making a high pitched noise between a scream and a yell. At the end of this cacophonous gymnastic routine, she raises herself up on one elbow, and lets its resident out.

When the sparks clear, her eyes widen at the tiny Applin that now sits on the sheets before her.

She scoops it up in her cupped hands. "Aw, aren't you the adorablest little babby," she coos, tickling it under its apple-shaped head, to appreciative squirms.

It's instant: she's already utterly and irrevocably attached.

This would be Gloria's third Applin now; the other two have been chilling about in a PC box from the day she caught them. She wouldn't be able to say why Hop chose this species as a gift over any other, but she does know that this little guy will not be going anywhere near her PC boxes. That is a privilege it enjoys, as a gift from her best friend in the world.

Well, "best friend" isn't a hundred percent accurate anymore. Sure, he is her best friend. And, more pertinently since the start of their trainer journeys, he is her best rival. That's what she tells him at the end of every match he loses, to comfort his wounded pride. That's what he tells her at the end of every double battle they finish side by side. Best friend and best rival. Best rival and best friend.

Letting the Applin down in the folds of her blankets, Gloria flops down on her stomach, propping her chin up on her elbows.

What she doesn't tell Hop is that his glowing smile has been tying her head up in knots. That he radiates a unique energy—a fearless and unapologetic sincerity, a bright-golden warmth—that makes her want to keep bumping into him, all the time, forever, all across Galar.

It's that sort of rivalry. Which doesn't sound like a rivalry so much as a great, big—

Gloria groans, burying her burning face in her hands. But she doesn't need Applin to tell her what it is she feels for her to recognise it. She flips over onto her back. "How am I to be a proper rival like this?" She flips again. "Why does he have to be so darn cute? "

Applin makes a quiet mewling noise, snapping her out of her funk as quickly as she fell into it. She casts her gaze about for unseen eavesdroppers, before pointing an accusing finger at the apple-shaped worm. "Don't you tell him I said that," she says softly.

It blinks innocently back, wiggling its tail.

Gloria shakes her head. "Can't just have things be simple, can we?"

The plan is simple enough. So when Gloria responds to the gift in a way he completely failed to anticipate, Hop has no idea what to make of it.

Her initial message comes ten minutes after his visit, getting his hopes right up, like a Drifblim in the afternoon wind.

Thank you so much for the gift! :') it reads.

It's no trouble at all! he answers, and waits all day for her reply.

But as the evening wears on without another peep from her, he begins to panic.

What's going on? The possibilities won't stop rolling round and round in his head, like errant Wooloo. It isn't like the frank and forthright Gloria to chuck a confession aside, to not address something so important.

In his head, there is only one explanation.

Hop spends a solid day pacing around Hammerlocke with his eyes glued to his phone, past certain that everything's gone down the pan. It takes everything in him to keep that stomach-turning dread down; he hasn't gotten it this bad since his spectacular defeat to Bede, and even then he didn't feel as frigidly alone as he does now. By now, he would have started a thirty-message rant to Lee—but even he is too ashamed to go through the agony of explaining it to him.

All that energy is being channelled into his determined pacing. He walks and walks, from one end of the Hammerlocke battlements to the other. The fourth time he passes the Pokemon Centre, the lady inside scurries out with an unopened lemonade in hand, stopping him to ask if all is right with him.

All is not right, but Hop spares her the endless details of his foolhardy plan. The sympathy in her smile is the jolt that snaps him out of his moping, driving home the realisation that his energy is wasted on regret. As the nurse hands him the lemonade, they start to talk about Hammerlocke and her work and the gym challenge, pointedly avoiding all mention of Applin.

When Hop comes sprinting to the gate of Hammerlocke Station the next morning, the flash of a bright green tam o' shanter draws his gaze like a compass needle to a magnet. Gloria has beaten him here, already pacing back and forth in front of the teller booths.

When their eyes meet, her face brightens as quickly as his. "I got the tickets!" she shouts, leaping up on her toes, fanning out the perforated strips. "One for you, and one for me."

"No way!" he answers, quickening to a dash. He skids to a stop in front of her. "You didn't have to, mate—let me pay you!"

"No sirree, it's the least I could do," she replies, thrusting the tickets out in his direction, "in return for the Applin."

Hop feels his pulse skyrocket at the mention of the Applin. He braces himself for her to say the inevitable.

She doesn't, only wiggles the tickets expectantly at him.

And like that, he realises she has no intention of ever bringing it up again. Hop puts on a grin to smooth over the moment. It's not ideal. But he can live with this, even if it means having no answer.

"It was nothing," he says brightly, snatching one of the tickets out of her hand. "Lunch is on me, yeah?"

"I won't say no," she answers as they start towards the gates.

The train ride from Hammerlocke to Wyndon is as relaxing as they come, but Gloria isn't doing a whole lot of relaxing.

Sitting across from Hop, she is forced her to choose between reading about Wyndon and stealing glances at him over the top of her phone. Thankfully he resolves this dilemma a lmost as soon as he's gotten out his phone, launching into a free-flowing narration of his thoughts on the many sights of Galar's magnificent capital. He lifts his phone to show her every photograph that catches his fancy, beaming as if he's seen nothing cooler, before immediately seeing something cooler.

"And Wyndon Stadium," he continues, flipping his phone for Gloria for the twentieth time, with an exuberant smile to match, "where the whole of Galar—no, the whole world is gonna be watching us!"

It's impossible not to catch his excitement. "Just imagine battling in front of that crowd," she breathes, scrolling past photos of the stadium's teeming stands. "But I say we've really earned our right to be there!"

Hop's face lights up at her words. "You get it, right?" he answers, leaping to his feet. "You and me are gonna make our match there the greatest match that ever was!"

"You and me!" she echoes. It was never a contest, was it? It was always a collaboration. "Of course, Hop! I'll settle for no less."

Letting his palms drop to the tabletop, Hop's expression softens. "I'm really glad you're the one here," he says with a smile like a ray of the dawn.

If this conversation were being had over text, Gloria would have the luxury of stuffing her face in a pillow. As it is, there's nothing for her to hide behind as she feels the blush creep over her face. She takes her hat off fumblingly, and hides the lower half of her face behind it, laughing.

"Me too," she replies. "I'm glad it's you, too."

Five minutes apart on Route 10 are all it takes for the travelling companions to lose each other in the blustery blizzard.

For two days, Hop fails to find his way back to Gloria, and it isn't for lack of trying. If she's always around the corner, he wouldn't know; the storm covers tracks faster than they form.

Those evenings spent lost in this curtaining blur of snow are like a rite of passage, marking a quiet but certain transition from one world to the next. But always, always Hop finds his mind returning to Gloria, and his heart to her absent warmth, like a missing blanket in bed, or an extinguished lamp in the night.

He can't seem to find a signal on his phone, and his three messages to her—gloria, where are you???; how are you holding up with the cold?; I can't get a signal out here :(—sit unsent in his outbox. This silence would be unbearable if he weren't so busy keeping slush out of his tent and shielding his campfires from the wind. Instead it is only infuriating.

When their paths converge again near the gates of Wyndon, it couldn't be soon enough. Hop spots Gloria from a road away—a silhouette shaking like a leaf in the breeze, her scarf bunched up around her face and her hands stuffed down her pockets.

The cry she lets out when their eyes meet over the snow is gutting in its desperation. "Thank goodness!" She sounds as if she might weep, stumbling through the snowdrifts in loping strides.

"There you are, Gloria!" Hop shouts back, dashing towards her as fast as the sinking snow will allow. They crash into an embrace and pull each other’s heat close, drawing deep breaths that fall warm on each other's backs. "You all right there, Gloria? I've missed you!"

She leans away and rubs her eyes, cheeks rosy with the cold. "I haven't slept in two days…"

He shakes his head. “Gloria! You've been pushing yourself hard again, haven't you? It's just like you, to be out training for two days straight in this weather!"

She sniffles in answer, shoulders sagging.

"C'mon, give me your bag. You’re looking absolutely knackered."

Gloria must be every bit as exhausted as she sounds, because she doesn't waste a minute politely declining, slinging her backpack off and right into his arms. He isn't ready for its unexpected heft when it lands, throwing him bodily backward.

"What's in here?” he exclaims, planting a foot behind him for balance. “Not your Coalossal, I hope?"

This wins him a laugh from her—a sound like a merrily crackling fire on a cold day. “It's all Full Restores. I've learned a thing or two from you, too.” She winks at him.

Just like that, the minutes thin to slivers again.

In the halo of each other's warmth, the two not-quite-rivals trudge towards the tapering edge of the blizzard, Cinderace lighting their way to the fabled city. They keep the silence at bay with endless yarns about the past two days' misadventures.

Their arms seem to brush every ten steps, but neither draws closer nor pulls away. Sometimes it's not just their arms; their fingers tangle by accident, and then soar apart, like the north poles of magnets. Soon, Gloria pulls her arms close to hug herself, and Hop tries to believe it's because of the cold.

Like flurrying snowflakes, his thoughts are caught in a swirling dance, between should I? , and am I supposed to ?

Everything between them seems fated to get tangled in ambiguities. Is this how it will always be, questions that can't be answered?

Hop steels his gaze, vowing not to wander too close to the flame. They are rivals first, and friends second, just as promised. It doesn't do, to breach that unspoken pact.

Besides, if Gloria is going to break a promise for someone, why would it be him?

With the change they earned battling hikers in the snow and a quick inventory-clearing trip to the Pokemart, Hop and Gloria pull together enough to book two rooms in the Rose of the Rondelands.

Halting at his door, Hop looks expectantly at Gloria across the corridor. She lets her fingers drop from the doorknob. She's always felt like a hero, a trailblazer, change following her wherever she goes. But standing here in these worn-out trainers, she feels like nothing more than the teen she is, too small and scraggly for the gold-trimmed velvet and dark polished wood.

"Well, tomorrow's the big day." her companion says. "You think you’ll sleep well?"

His voice always carries a certain kindness, no matter what he's talking about—something as consequential as the Champion Cup, or as banal as the weather. It's the sound of home, of Postwick. It makes each new city seem a little less strange.

With her childhood friend and dearest rival here to take on the coming challenge with her, Gloria knows she can harbour no fear of tomorrow. "I think I’ll manage," she says. "You?"

"I'll do my best," he answers, folding his arms behind his head. "I know I've spent years waiting for this moment, but somehow I'm just bursting with nerves right now!" He closes his eyes and smiles. "I can't wait to meet Lee in the stadium. And you too. See you tomorrow?"

Gloria nods with a mini-salute. "See you tomorrow."

Too suddenly, too soon, they are standing on opposite sides of the painted line that runs down the middle of the Wyndon Stadium pitch.

Gloria knows she got the short end of the stick, having to face two friends in a row, while her companion got to send a stranger packing. There's a feverish energy in the air, horns blaring across the stadium, flags bearing their faces fluttering over painted banners of their teams. The pressure of these fifty thousand gazes is palpable, and she shrinks away from them.

"I just had this sort of flashback, you know," Hop's words barrel through her thoughts, reminding her that he is there. "Remember? Back when we were still in Postwick. When we got our Pokémon from Lee that day, I never would’ve dreamed that I’d end up standing here, facing you, of all people."

"Me neither!" She can't stop the smile from breaking out on her face. It's just like him, dear Hop, her Hop, to chit-chat on the brink of one of the biggest battles of their lives. For moments, she can imagine they're back on that sleepy street in Postwick, where they first tested their starters against each other—an easy battle, no stakes, just two friends discovering a new joy together. Just as easily, her nerves begin to thaw away. "But...it almost feels like this was meant to happen, from the day we started out."

Hop nods, entirely too carefree for all the nerves that must be welling up in his chest. "I always hoped it would come to this—you and me, out here, battling for all the world to see. It feels right , you know what I mean?" Then he narrows his eyes, and plucks his first Pokeball from his pocket. "But it’s time I finish what was started that day. Got it? The one who’ll become Champion—is me!"

Gloria grins right back, reaching for her own. He hasn't changed one bit with his bragging. Hop, I love you, but you should know who you're talking to by now!

***

Then the whistle shrieks across the stadium, and the audience surges in the lights, and Gloria hurls a Pokeball into the air, shouting, "go, Pip!"

And out of the light comes an Appletun.

Hop allows himself to gape, and then his grin returns with all the fire there is in him. "I won't go easy just 'cause you're using him!" He shouts across the pitch, calling Dubwool out of its Pokeball.

"I expect no less!" Gloria shoots back, the thrill igniting in her eyes.

This time, unlike so many times before, the joy of seeing her smile bursts through him as determination. "Alright then, Dubwool—Cotton Guard!"

When they say Wyndon Stadium is like no other, they don't simply mean in relation to its size or its fame. Out here in the centre of the field, the lights burn through every thought, searing what's unnecessary away. This battle doesn't feel like a skirmish so much as an act in a play, every gesture amplified through the lenses of cameras and across the world.

Hop has gotten used to the premonition, at the start of every fight, that Gloria is about to pull another easy win. His bragging was never any no more than bluster, and they both know it: Gloria has always been more of a champion than he, and this battle of battles is unlikely to be a blip in the pattern.

But now, as his Dubwool and her Appletun go to town on each other, each reckless charge answered with a roaring beam, each fired seed repelled with a butting of horns, three things begin to dawn on him.

One: Hop is holding his own. Gloria isn't making quick work of him like he's come to expect. It is strange and bittersweet to know he is charting his growth in losses, but he can't deny the thrill of realising that this battle, this magic he's working right now, could hardly be called losing at all.

Two: Like never before, his mind is unbelievably clear. He understands what he's doing now, like he never did in those half baked battles before, though he used to grin and taunt as if he did. He knows what Gloria is about to do next, and he knows what the best answer is. Move for move, blow for blow.

Three: Gloria is pulling all the stops on this battle, too. She's rolled up her sleeves, and she's dashing about for a better angle on the damage, like he is, eyes transfixed on the epicentre of the fight. He's seen those eyes a thousand times—welling up with tears at her house gate the day she moved in, pleading with her mom for a dad who won't come home. Sparkling with joy when her neighbour's baby Wooloo came leaping over the fence into her yard, and its owner came scrambling after, landing on his back.

And now they are here, blazing in the stadium lights of this battlefield they share.

Pip staggers with a blow from a well-aimed Body Slam, trembling on his legs. "Flagging already?" he shouts.

"Not if I can help it!" Gloria fires right back, and so does her Pokemon, with a blinding Dragon Pulse.

Three, two, one. Dubwool goes down to Pip. By then, the Appletun is halfway to KO, Hop reckons. He knows she will save her Inteleon for when he brings out Cinderace, so he can safely send out Snorlax now, with a fourth move she won't be expecting: Ice Beam.

He is right. A single Ice Beam brings Pip to his knees. He catches Gloria's eye, and the look she gives him is not displeased, but proud and burning, like that of a runner hitting her stride.

"Just look at us go!" she calls out, tossing her second ball through the air.

Just look at them, standing side by side on the road out of Postwick—he ready to be his brother's successor, she aspiring to see Motostoke for the first time. The countryside sunrise stains the landscape pink, and their faces are aglow with its light.

This moment feels just like that one, in a way he can't quite articulate—awash with the exhilaration of watching something new begin. He wants to do it over and over again. See the sunrise again and again. Gloria at his side.

With a roar, Snorlax succumbs to her Coalossal's devastating Body Press. Both Corviknight and Pincurchin follow soon after, neither able to withstand it doubly boosted by Ancient Power. He glances at the scoreboard towering above them, which says that she has three Pokemon left, and he, one.

"Heavens, you're making this a fight to the death," she exclaims. "But it's time for me to take it home!"

"Yeah?" he replies, a hand cupped next to his mouth, tossing a Pokeball in the other. "It's not over till I say it's over! Lend me a hand, Cinderace!"

***

Cinderace whittles Coalossal down to knockout, but not before the towering Rock Pokemon has done a serious number, and when Inteleon inevitably comes into play on the next turn, Hop already knows what is to come.

The dust of their scuffle settles, to reveal his own dear starter lying motionless in the scorched grass, and all the hoping in the world does not make him stand.

The referee's whistle shrills, carving Hop's defeat in stone.

Disappointment kicks him in the gut before he can rein it in, and he winces with the sting. He's standing here, watching his efforts from the past months go out the window; punching the air is all the outward expression of his frustration that he'll allow.

But he glances up to see Gloria walking towards him, still panting with the effort of running about on the pitch, and she is smiling at him without any trace of glee. "Hop, you did a proper job there," she says. "That's the best battle we've had."

He manages to push the sting of tears out of his mind long enough to let her words win him back to joy, walking out to meet him. "Thanks, mate," he answers. "I'm really glad you were the one here with me." As they come to a stop just half a metre apart, his voice drops. "I couldn't have imagined anyone else ending my Champion Cup run."

Gloria shakes her head. "Well, you know it's not really over," she insists, more optimism in her gaze than he feels in his whole body. "You can always come back, enter the next semifinal..."

An announcement echoes across the stands, pronouncing Gloria the winner of the semifinal. Here on the field, they continue to chat at leisure, as if they were back in Postwick, on the field just past their neck of the woods.

"You know," he says, "even when Sonia was saying that you and me looked like we could become heroes. I really never felt like one."

"Don't say that," his rival cuts in. "You're a hero too—maybe you don't see it, but I do. You're nothing short of amazing you need to believe it."

This unexpected declaration sends a surge of heat spreading through his cheeks. "That's so sweet of you," he finally says, grinning to hide his blush. "Always believing in me when I don't believe in myself...even though you and me both know I'm no legend." He folds his arms behind his head. "But you , Gloria! I think maybe you really could do all sorts of great things. Good on you!"

Her smile becomes tender. "I think you'll do lots of great things, too."

They go silent, but the fifty thousand watchers in the stands are far from it, the boisterous strains of cheering and jeering echoing across the stadium to fill the gap.

Hop looks about at the milling stands all around them. "I think they might be waiting for us to shake hands," he says.

He sees her hesitate as she lifts her hand. Their fingers meet, a gentle brush that makes Gloria flinch and a giddy thrill surge through Hop's chest. Then they bring their hands back together, more firmly this time.

Neither of them lets go for half a minute, though the handshake is over and their arms have gone still. Then, he catches a narrowing of Gloria's eyes—and she swings her other arm out for a surprise hug, engulfing him in her arms. He returns it just as fervently, and the gesture stirs up the bittersweet mixture of pride and regret all over again, even as the stands erupt with cheers. He gulps as tears threaten to rise, fully aware that this hug is currently on every screen of every telly in the country.

"We've gotten so far, and I'm so proud of the both of us," she whispers. "Childhood friends, training rivals, and now this."

"You read my mind," he answers, blinking a tear out of his eye. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

As her arms loosen, Hop fights back the urge to snatch her back, or to make any less ambiguous displays of affection. Now would not be the time for that. They nod once, and finally turn their backs on each other, walking out the doors at the opposite ends of the field.

Gloria expected to feel like a completely different person upon winning her way into the final. She reunites with Hop in the weights room under the stands, with huge smiles that become a giddy hug. "Lee's waiting for us in the lobby—says he wants to see us both," the words tumble out of Hop's mouth as soon as they draw apart, and he laughs off his own thrill. "You were amazing out there. Even knowing how good you are, I was blown away!"

The delivery of this line is so earnest, and accompanied by such a dazzling grin, that Gloria begins to flush instantly, heat spreading to her ears and down her neck. Meanwhile Hop has decide that his brother can't wait any longer, and he dashes off, missing the sight of her going as red as Leon's cape.

Speaking of Leon's cape, it is the first thing they see as the lift doors snick open, to reveal the man himself and his trail of fans. He seems to have been preparing his Charizard pose from the moment he saw the lift indicator light up, and now unfurls the fur-trimmed velvet from over his shoulder as he thrusts his hand up towards the ceiling, leaving them both to grin awkwardly while his fans go wild around him.

The Champion's flair for drama is on full display as he launches into a momentous speech about their recently-concluded battle, distilling its profundity to the most dramatic details, though Gloria is starkly aware—when is she never?—of Hop's impatient fidgeting.

"The challenger standing before us might well end up being you, Gloria," Leon goes on blithely, his hand falling on he shoulder. "In fact, that’s precisely what I’m hoping for! And I would be happy to give you a detailed run-down—"

" That's right! " Hop cuts in too eagerly, stepping between the two. "The real challenge is what comes next. And I'm completely exhausted! I just want to head back to the hotel and rest..."

Leon nods, though it's uncertain whether he's taken the cue. "Best to refill your energy stores first!" he puts in. "Why don’t we go get some dinner together? My treat."

Little do they know that this casual dinner invitation is about to balloon into a plot that involves Macro Cosmos Construction, the whole Galar Region, and likely the fabric of reality itself.

It all starts with a no-show by Leon at the restaurant he picked out. Then on this night of nights, the pair find themselves caught up in a chase across Wyndon, that includes an impromptu concert by Piers, a gauntlet of double battles with Macro Cosmos employees on the world's longest lift ride, and a victory over Oleana's towering, glowering Garbador in the starlight at the top of Rose Tower.

As Rose's right-hand woman slinks away and the stench of bilge starts to dissipate, the sound of talking catches their ears through the gleaming dimness. They halt, creeping up along the curve of a metallic wall, to where the two unmistakeable voices speak about a host of portentous things: a crisis of the future, a Darkest Day to come.

"It's Lee," Hop whispers.

"Not yet," Gloria replies, but he has already taken off towards the voices.

A pause is shattered as the boy bursts into the two men’s midst, both pairs of eyes turning right as Gloria stumbles up to his side. Instead of exploding in panic or rage, Leon smiles to see the two intrepid heroes, once again sticking their noses where they shouldn't.

With a nod, he renews his promise of dinner, more than eager to leave the Chairman and their conversation behind.

As they go, Gloria glances back and catches a sneer from the Chairman, a contortion so strange on a face once so kindly. It isn't a sneer of pettiness, but one of defiance, like a wounded Pokemon as it rears up for a final strike.

Dinner conversation with the brothers resumes where it left off, at the hotel. The air is weighed down by an opaque cloud of dread that no one mentions, but Leon, sitting across the table from them, has it in himself to crack jokes, and Hop has it in him to groan at his brother's humour, their repartee swift and scathing like only two brothers' can be.

"They say it takes a lot more than just skill to fight a battle as beautiful as the one you two gave us this morning," Leon says between mouthfuls. "It takes heaps of chemistry, too. And I say, the two of you seem to have it by the bucketful!"

“You know it!” Hop announces, pumping a fist.

"And you know what they say about rivals with chemistry?" Leon winks.

Well, she doesn't, but she knows what the answer has to be, considering where Leon and his rival ended up—exchanging flowers in the rain, stealing secret rides on the Wyndon Eye.

Embarrassed, Gloria lets her eyes dip away from the table. She’s certain that Leon notices, grinning at her the way that he does now.

Sleep that night is hard, but not impossible. Though the greatest battle of her life is to come, Gloria can only think of the chairman's mutterings, about a future to grand for anyone but himself to see, and his ominous sneer.

The second day of the Champion Cup makes the first look like child's play, and not just because of the battles.

Gloria is surprised to find that she doesn't just share the stage with the gym leaders, but also Bede, emerging from the cocoon of Opal's tutelage to battle in her stead. This time, there’s something different to him, an earnest energy, as if his rivals and his mentor have finally rubbed off on him. When she triumphs over him yet again, in front of fifty thousand fans, no less, his answering stare is almost too gentle for the person she thought he was.

And his send-off, a plain wish of good luck, propels Gloria through the gruelling tournament ranks, with Nessa, Bea and then Raihan in her way—no-holds-barred, now that she has graduated from the child's play of gym battles. Thrice a battle is reprised. Thrice, she wins by a hair's breadth. She wonders how she’s doing it, somehow repeating Leon’s irreplicable feat from a decade ago.

And then, there’s no one left but she and the undefeated Champion himself, and she dreads that her tenuous lucky streak is finally about to break.

The call of her name brings her jogging out onto the Wyndon field one final time, and the harsh beams of stadium floodlights hit her like the surf, along with a roar more deafening than ever before. Leon smiles as their eyes meet; the noise and the glare are like nothing more than spring air to him, a flattering light that sets his outfit sparkling.

But the usual course of events does not hold for long.

Before either can throw the first Pokeball, the LED screen flickers out, to a sudden plummet of the noise in the stands. The aerial footage of the pitch and the score overlay are replaced by Chairman Rose's smiling three-storey visage, as he casually announces the doom of Galar to the airwaves.

Like a shroud pulled over a coffin, dark clouds surge across the skylight of Wyndon Stadium. Though they cannot see it, they can feel it in the air, the frenzied noise of an entire region being upended in a mass panic. Leon and Gloria scramble off the pitch towards the doors—and straight into Hop. “I was so worried, I came right away!" he shouts the instant their eyes meet across the dark corridor. "The guards almost didn't let me through, but I told them I well deserve to, since it's my brother and my best friend out here!”

"I should’ve realized what the chairman intended to do before it came to this," Leon glowers. As he always has and always will, he decides that all this, this catastrophe of a thousand years, is his problem to solve alone. "I’ll take responsibility now for fixing this mess! This is the real Champion time!"

And then he is off. There is nothing either of them could possibly say to stop him. This is a trait they all share. Instead, they turn to each other, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I want to help my brother, I’ve got to!" Hop shouts, voice breaking as their eyes meet. "But, but I can’t even manage to beat you, so what sort of help could I ever be?"

The stinging strain of despair in his voice, so unlike the friend she knew in Postwick, is what moves Gloria now to frown—to snatch his shoulders and lock eyes with him, with the intensity of two trainers about to battle. "You can help," she answers, leaning closer than she would any other time. "Because I believe in you, even if you don't believe in you."

The precarious balance in which the fate of Galar lies demands all their fear, but her heart swells knowing she will be beside Hop when it all comes crashing , best friend of a decade, rival of a year, taking on the end of time together. Alone she is just daring; with Hop she feels invincible.

He spares a moment's sheepish smiling, rubbing at the back of his neck. "You're always too good to me," he laughs, before his eyes widen. "Hold the phone. The chairman was talking about the Darkest Day. But...where did we even hear that name?"

Their gazes snap together like poles of magnets, and they say in unison, "That statue of the hero in Motostoke.”

Hop matches Gloria’s grin with his own, and the two waste no second to sprint to the closest taxi bay. They know who will have the answer to all this.

That fateful evening in the Slumbering Weald, when they forged through the forest fog in search of that hapless Wooloo—the secret that they alone shared—that is the answer.

Sonia says as much. They glance into each other’s moonlit eyes, finally understanding the thrill they felt that day—that chilling feeling of fate's machinations falling into place. The young professor clears her throat. "Quit goggling and hurry along, Galar is depending on it!" she whispers, waving them off.

With a nod at each other, they set off at a dash.

"I wonder if we’re about to head straight into a wall of fog again," Hop murmurs as their feet crunch in the gravel, coming up on the rickety old gate leading out of the Wooloo farm. “Not that it’d bother us now."

He watches for her signal before unlatching the gate. The tilt of the road makes it swing squeakily open of its own accord. They stare out over the twisting old way into the trees, and finally cross the threshold.

It doesn’t take long for the fog to swallow them again, as they pass along the same hairpin bend, cross the fallen log from before, and dodge a wandering Weezing. Suddenly they have lost each other’s faces in the murk. "Gloria!" With a yelp of dismay, Hop reaches a hand out for hers. Their fingers collide in the dark. His heart leaps.

This time, there is no tentative dance of fingers: their grips on each other’s hands grow firm, as if their lives depended on it.

Unseeing, they march on, farther from light, farther into this secret old world. All around them, there rises a rumble that swells into a haunting howl. Beyond the veil of the fog, they glimpse the ghostly silhouettes of two great creatures padding through the grey. The hairs stand on their arms at each footfall. Hop feels his companion's grip tighten as the eerie song envelops them.

Then the moonlight surges over them, and the fog pulls away. The gleam of the lake catches their widening eyes. That crystal clear light, protected from the world by the fog, lays them bare, their staring eyes and joined hands.

There is a ruined stone gazebo bearing a cracked arch on the edge of the lake. The path to it is carpeted with moss, untrodden in decades. Hop stands transfixed by the scene for several seconds, until the tug of Gloria’s hand brings his attention crashing back down to the present. “We have a world to save,” she whispers.

They tread down that mossy path which lies like a carpet welcoming returning monarchs—inevitably forward, to the ruined gazebo, where legends seem to converge.

All that remains of those old legends are two rusted artifacts, left like an afterthought on the dais beneath the arch. A sword and a shield, side by side.

They look at each other simultaneously. "You always did say you wanted a shield," Gloria whispers, casting her eyes down at where their hands are linked, her grip tightening on his hand.

Hop blinks back. She is so close in this last thin fog that he can see the light gleaming off her eyelashes. And out here, with their hands interlocked and the moonlight off the lake softening her face in its glow, he suddenly wants to kiss her.

Now's not the time, the thought nags. Still, he leans, ever so gently, towards her and her sparkling eyes.

She breaks off first with a small laugh. Startled, Hop lets her hand fall away, busying himself with picking up the rusted shield. "I don’t know if these rusty old things will really be able to stop the Darkest Day," he says.

"Looks deceive, you know," his lone companion replies, kneeling to retrieve the sword.

He shrugs. "Well, I guess it can’t hurt to have them along. Let’s hope they bring us some good luck."

Luck is the least of what they need.

In Hammerlocke, the sky seems to have sunk ten miles lower, a livid red light glowering through the cracks in the clouds. Towards the centre, those ragged edges become furrows, torn in the throttling thunder. The clouds knot around a pillar of light that towers over the stadium, and from the centre of the swirling storm reaches a claw of red light, this creature which has already bested Chairman Rose and Leon, creature no more as it draws all the power of Galar into itself to transcend its form.

This is Eternatus, the Chairman’s solution, the permanent solution. The people across Galar, in Spikemuth and Wyndon, in Postwick and Wedgehurst, cower in their homes, waiting for this creature above creatures to rend the world to shreds. And yet, alone at the pinnacle of this battle to end heaven and earth, silhouetted in the crimson light where even the Champion could not go before, stand two friends from Postwick Town.

"Pyro Ball!" Gloria cries, sheltering herself from a fresh barrage of stone shards as another useless ball of fire is swallowed by the swirling plasma furnace above them. From the corner of her eye she sees Dubwool tumble to its knees, heaving with the effort of breathing in this infernal heat.

With each swipe, with each stab, it becomes clearer that this strange god is beyond mortal wounding. Each time their gazes meet, they burn brighter. Each time, they smile harder, as if to reassure each other that Galar is not about to be torn apart. But this thing is beyond them, and they know it: beyond humanity even, beyond the world.

But perhaps not beyond those two, the two whose names are only ever whispered.

Or so Gloria finally understands, when she sees Hop's eyes widen, and watches him pull the shield from his rucksack. "Gloria, use that sword!" he calls over to her even as she's already fumbling in her bag for it.

She snatches the cracked sword, and raises it against the crimson inferno, just as Hop raises his shield, mirror images of each other...waiting for the nothing to give way...to something.

You know that moment in your favourite show, when the music swells and the sky explodes in rainbow, and victory comes to the heroes in a burst of light and splendour? Before this point, Gloria thought those moments only existed within the confines of the telly screen.

But as the artifacts catch the light, a millennium-old thunder cracks the sky, and a haunting howl stirs the city. Rainbow beams hurtle from the clouds, and where the twin meteors crash into the stadium field, twin lights surge forth: the long-lost wolves of legend, brought out by the beckoning of the bearers of the sword and shield.

The ancient objects shoot out of the two companions' hands, exploding in fireball lights like new year pyrotechnics. The wolves canter out of the sky to snatch their weapons from the air, turning their blazing eyes on the singular terrible beast above them, the window to the netherworld.

Side by side. Zacian and Zamazenta. Sword and shield. Gloria and Hop. The ones called together by fate. There is no fear in their eyes.

Visitors aren't usually allowed in the training room this close to the battle, but Gloria must have convinced the bodyguards to let Hop through. He can hear the muted roar of the stadium crowd outside as he sprints to her, and she answers in kind the moment their eyes meet. Crashing into a hug, they catch each other about the shoulders and spin once around, laughing, while his Cinderace bounds into the room after him.

Though he doesn't say it, Hop almost feels like they're about to part ways for good. After all, the next time they meet, his best friend might well be the Champion of Galar. And he will still be him, forever lagging, forever falling short.

"All right, Gloria? The big moment’s finally here, eh?" he says as she pulls away, dusting out her sleeves. "I came just to cheer you on!"

She grins bashfully. "That's sweet of you," she murmurs. "Can't be easy, cheering against your own brother."

"It’s not easy picking sides," he admits, then claps her on the shoulder. "So you better beat Lee, you hear? If anyone can beat the unbeatable Champion, it’ll be you, mate."

Gloria doesn't look certain of it, the way her forehead furrows even as she says thank you. Frowning, he picks up both her hands and squeezes them. "No, really! You deserve it!" he says earnestly, and something must get through, because she laughs, dipping her head, and his stomach somersaults again.

"If you think so, then I'll believe it," she answers, with a smile that sets his head spinning. "I'll win it for you."

And here he is in the stands, still wrapped up in his stupid thrill at hearing those words. And there she stands at the crossfire of the stadium lights, facing his brother across the green.

Leon sends out Aegislash first. Then Gloria throws her Pokeball—and out comes who else but Pip, radiant in the stadium lights. Hop can't help calling the little dragon's name as it appears, a shout that is gradually picked up and echoed by the audience around him, till everyone is chanting Pip's name. His gift, his confession—still unanswered—has taken on a life of its own. And he loves it.

From the moment the first whistle goes off, it takes a few minutes for the lay of the land to make itself clear. Something's different: the Champion, who always makes decisive work of his opponents, can't get a move in with his Aegislash without Pip retaliating in kind. Still, Gloria concedes no distraction as she commands the Appletun across the field, shoulders tense as wound up clockwork.

In an explosion of colliding beams, both Pokemon fall on the same turn. The excitement propels Hop from his seat, his heart thumping out his throat. Sure, they're still tied, but Leon would normally have pulled ahead by now. Somehow, Gloria is keeping up, keeping apace.

Leon's Dragapult brings down Gloria's Beartic. Without missing a beat, her Coalossal snatches the darting dragon from the air and knocks it clean out in a single Fire Blast. Gloria and Leon remain neck and neck for all of the match, trading one knockout for another like a game of rock paper scissors.

And now they've worn each other down to their final Pokemon: Inteleon and Charizard. Everyone watching, from the analysts in the bench to the children on the couch, knows which way the balance swings on this matchup—and Gloria has saved her Dynamax up knowing that Leon would, too.

They're grinning as their mutual predictions come true, the two Pokemon bursting from their Dynamax balls to tower over their trainers, shaking the ground with every step. The syncopated pause gives way, as blow meets thunderous blow at the centre of the pitch, and steam and light surge across the audience in a show well worth its entrance fee.

But Inteleon's type advantage soon begins to make itself felt, its soaring opponent slowly battered into submission as each Geyser deals just enough damage to outstrip the damage of the repeated Wildfires and Airstreams. It is with a heaving roar that a flagging Charizard mounts a formidable final blast, packing enough heat to set Inteleon staggering, but not enough to bring it to its knees. 

That is all the opening Gloria needs. Hop can pinpoint the moment she nails the victory, as her starter sends another Geyser home, in a tidal wave that rolls over the lower stands and explodes into a cloud of steam.

The veil of steam pulls back to reveal Charizard, lying unconscious on the singed grass.

The inevitable whistle shrills.

The stadium erupts in a cacophony of trumpet blasts and yelling. Hop adds his voice to the melange, but then he sees the corner of Leon's lip curl, and his breath catches. His brother pulls his cap down over his eyes, as if he knows he might let his composure slip.

Hop has seen it enough times before, tears spilled over spoiled cakes and failed advances—but not like this, not out here. Despite himself, he reels with a pang, willing his brother to push through.

But when the dethroned Champion lifts his face, he is grinning. Leon tosses his cap into the air, like a graduate throwing his mortarboard, and the applause erupts again.

While the cap spins over their heads, everyone feels the change of the light, as the old era steps aside to allow the next to commence—as Leon lifts Gloria's wrist into the air and announces her name to Galar.

Today, it's as if the world has changed, and yet nothing has.

It is a truth universally acknowledged by Galarians, that every major battle must be followed by a press conference of equal size.

This is no ordinary conference that Leon and Gloria are being ushered into. With the rise and fall of Eternatus, the resignation of Chairman Rose, the changing of Champions and all the details in between, the agenda towers tall over everyone in the room. Before the two take their places in velvet chairs at the bench, Leon turns to Gloria with a whisper of "You'll be fine," and she thanks him, failing to see the foreboding in his statement.

Which she wishes she had. In front of them, velvet barricades are all that hold back the flood of newsagents, but that doesn't stop the camera flashes from hitting their eyes every odd second, growing incessant when the questions start coming in. Though the announcer and referee are here, the two champions take the brunt of the questions. Gloria feels like a Psyduck caught in an oncoming Solarbeam, stuttering at the start of every answer she gives, never seeming to satisfy anyone.

"How do you feel to be the first to beat the previously-undefeated Champion?" Flash. Click. "Do you think you can fill his shoes, kid?" Click, click, flash. She's starting to wish she'd written a script for each question. In front of these blinding cameras and glittering eyes, she feels like a sheared Wooloo, her every flaw laid bare.

"What made you put Inteleon last in your lineup? Strategy or luck?"

She winces at another flash. "Uh, well, I've seen almost every one of Leon's battles—me and Hop used to catch them all together, and I had them mem—" She halts, realising her response is starting to meander, but she can already see a dozen journalists jotting this detail down: hero-worshipped previous Champion . "I mean, I know well that Leon usually saves his Charizard for last! Because he always does that, you know? Like, like at the previous finals, with Raihan, you know? And, uh... Inteleon is a Water type. Sooo..."

She caps off that trainwreck response with an unconvincing chuckle, and catches a glance from Leon that is all concern.

"A champion move on Gloria's part, to be sure!" he swoops to the rescue with that bright, camera-ready voice. "Her ability to track not just type advantages but her opponent's habits will serve her brilliantly. A true rising star, and I couldn't be happier to name her my successor!"

Gloria flashes him a weak smile and retreats just a little further into her chair.

How can she, so energised by the gazes of fifty thousand in the stadium, be such a babbling simpleton in a room of no more than a hundred? The stadium lights are cleansing, igniting. This is a different sort of light, these camera shutters burning out patches of her vision, beaming her face to millions of homes. In this light, she can't call up that fire. All she really feels is...cold.

That is, until her phone buzzes on her lap.

Waiting for a lull in the interview, between one question and the next, Gloria steals a glance at the screen.

im at the back

you look so stressed… i believe in you! show them who's boss! (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

When her eyes reach the smiley at the end, she can't help a grin. She scans the edges of the crowd, searching for the indigo hair of her best friend, but though she can't find him, her heart feels lighter.  "Is my baby brother here?" Leon whispers out the corner of his mouth. She nods eagerly.

Hop is somewhere in this crowd. And just like that, she knows she can take it on.

"Miss Gloria. Tell us about that matchup between Beartic and Dragapult. You had the type advantage, and yet your Pokemon went down first. How did that happen?"

"I slipped up there," she confesses, riding the tide of her thrill. "Got complacent after winning the first set, but Leon pulled through right as I went off guard. He's not Galar's longest-reigning champion for nothing!"

"I almost thought I had you there," Leon agrees good-naturedly.

"And Gloria, if you'd humour me." The same reporter shakes out her papers. Gloria perks up. "You have an Appletun in your lineup—and you used it in every single battle in the finals. For all the viewers at home who have been following your gym challenges, this was quite the surprise addition, seeing as you didn't have it on your team at the Hammerlocke gym. When did it join your team? What prompted the addition?"

"Ah, yes, Pip!" Gloria's face lights up. Now this is a question she knows she can answer. "He was a gift, though he was just a wee Applin at the time."

"A gift? Whom from, if you can say?"

"Hop gave him to me," she says, basking in the warmth of saying his name to the cameras. "Awfully sweet of him. I knew in that moment that I had to train him up for the Champion Cup. Even with just a week on the roster!"

An unusual pause follows, as if no one knew how to react to this disclosure. She scans the audience, noticing a surge of conspiratorial whispering. Even Leon is goggling at her as if she just dropped a bomb on live air.

She feels her palms grow clammy, a tightness squeezing her heart. Was that the wrong thing to say?

The reporter clears her throat, leaning forward with excessive interest. "Ah, Hop? Your rival?"

She nods. "And my best friend."

Less whispering, more muttering.

"You said no to him, then?"

Now she's proper confused. "Excuse me? Said no to what?"

The news reporter continues with an eyebrow raised, "Are you, perhaps, unaware of the meaning of an Applin gift?"

She frowns, fidgeting in her seat. " Does it have a meaning?"

"Ahem, well, you see, Applin are typically offered as a confession of romantic feelings, and I was sure, if what you say is true, that Hop had..."

Gloria doesn't catch the rest of the sentence. She simply watches the room spiral into chaos. Or maybe that's just her vision, spinning wildly out of control with her skyrocketing pulse, as she replays the exact moment when Hop handed over the Pokeball outside her hotel room, all smiles and sheepish laughter, more than ready to run away.

Confession? she mouths incredulously.

She feels like her whole head is about to go up in flames.

Hop has spent the past ten minutes weaving through a packed maze of reporters and cameramen. He can see Gloria's face through gaps in the crowd, lips drawn together in poorly-masked agitation, but all he can do to ease it is to text her, which he does. 

And it just so happens that he is right there, trapped between two cameras, when Gloria reveals to the whole country—and maybe the whole world—that Hop gave her an Applin gift. Leon's brother Hop. Gloria's friend and rival Hop. This indigo-haired dork, right here.

As the room around him is slowly swallowed in chatter, it finally hits him. Gloria wasn't ignoring his gift. She didn't know. She didn't know that an Applin means "I want to be with you forever." She didn't know that he was trying to confess.

Well, now she does. And so does all of Galar.

"O-oh," is Gloria's eloquent answer, the syllables booming through every speaker in Galar. "I didn't know that."

Suddenly, Hop wants nothing more than to turn tail and run. And bury his face in a bush somewhere, or in his Dubwool's fur; he can't take the embarrassment of being exposed like this.

But before he can, someone points at him and hollers with a hand cupped to her mouth, "he's here! Hop is right here!"

And now it's too late.

He clutches at his cheeks, his whole brain screaming, no, no, no, not like this! But the crowd hurries to part before him, and every pair of eyes turns to find the subject of the fiasco. Suddenly, half the cameras in the room are trained on him, red lights glowing, and he has a perfectly unobstructed view of the conference table.

Sitting at the edge of her chair, Gloria is blushing to the tips of her ears. "Oh, hey, Hop," she says into her mic, all her camera-ready composure dissolving in a blink. She lifts a hand meekly to wave, smiling. "Sorry, this is weird."

Hop puts on a grin, despite how utterly numb he's going. "You know, this was always gonna be…weird. But you're right…this really is the weirdest it could possibly have gone."

He notices now that she's trembling. "Did…did you know about that? About Applin being a love confession, or—"

Hop nods, half so he doesn't have to keep looking her in the eye. "I thought you knew it too. I really thought everyone in Galar did."

"So you were trying to tell me…"

He balls up a hand into a fist, hedging his bets. Even if all of Galar gets to hear it, he's done giving half-answers. "Yeah, I was!" he shouts. "I'm completely in love with you! You're so talented, and brave…how could I not be?"

When a chorus of "aww"s answers his declaration, he feels a blush hit him in full force, so hard he feels like he might swoon. Beside Gloria, Leon's mouth falls open.

He can't tell if it's the strange light, or if her face really is getting redder by the second. She sounds breathless when she answers, "Why didn't you just…say it?"

"I was scared."

"No way, mate! You're so chatty, I thought you'd say something, if you really felt…"

They're in a room full of eyes and cameras, and they're talking like they're the only people here. "I was scared, I know it sounds downright stupid now, but I just didn't feel right, pressuring you. I thought, if I wasn't nearby when you found out how I felt, that you might feel less awful about saying no. I thought…"

"Hop! You're the silliest, you hear?" Gloria exclaims, causing a momentary screech of feedback. Now she's definitely blushing. "I have just three things to say to all this. One," she lifts her index finger, "I would have never figured out that that was what you were trying to tell me, with you beating around the bush and whatnot. Two ," another finger comes up and she waves her hand emphatically, "mate, you're my best friend. We literally battled Eternatus together. You know I wouldn't just turn on you like that! I mean, even if I were upset, I'd just take three days to myself, and then I'd be right as rain. It'd take more than a confession to turn our friendship over. And three!" Her face softens, and her voice drops, eyes pinned to the conference table. "I'm not going to do that. I'm not saying no. Because…well, because I feel exactly the same way about you. Wasn't it obvious?"

"Oh, Gloria…" His answer is almost entirely lost in all the "aww"ing in the room. Even Leon is joining them now!

"This whole time, I thought I was the only one, seeing signs that weren't there. Like…the way you looked at me that evening in the Slumbering Weald, I…I wanted so bloody bad for it all to mean something. But I was sure I was dreaming it all up."

Hop can feel his vision swimming, and half of him is sure it's a dream. The crowd, with its low hum of chatter, has faded into background noise. It's only him and Gloria here, twin spotlights on them. "I'm sorry I've been acting a dunce around you, I just—" he laughs— "I just didn't think you'd ever think twice about someone like me. I can't even beat you in a battle! And now you're the Champion, and I'm barely even a proper trainer—"

"There you go doing that again," she huffs, "making yourself out to be so awful, when you're amazing! You're sweet, smart, determined, heroic. you never miss the chance to uplift the people around you. You make me feel better just by being in the room—"

"I do?"

Covering her flushed face with a palm, she starts laughing. "Come here, silly, I love you so much."

He goes there, as if pulled by a thread. In the back of his head he knows they are breaking every last rule of press conference protocol. But no one seems to mind, and most are too busy chatting or cheering to pull him back as he ducks under the barricades, and up to the table.

"Excuse me if this is against press conference rules," says the newly-minted Champion into her mic, rising from her chair with a kick, "but I'm not great with following them." She walks around to the front of the table, so that they're side by side.

Leon leans towards his own mic. "For the record, I saw this coming."

"Lee!" Hop hisses.

But he is distracted by Gloria's hands on his shoulders, urging him gently towards her. He turns and finds her face inches away.

As if suddenly remembering his part in some unscripted play, he leans towards her. Their lips meet halfway; hers are softer than he could have imagined. Her fingers creep to the back of his neck and ease him closer.

He can only vaguely hear the coos and applause and camera clicks around him, everyone suddenly seeing fit to break with protocol.

The press conference is adjourned early, but not before Hop makes a quick exit, retreating back in amongst the audience while Gloria stares simperingly after, the memory of his smile and his lips still lighting flares in her head.

As the ushers guide the two champions into the backroom, Leon begins to laugh heartily. "I could only dream of pulling a stunt that bold," he says.

Gloria grins nervously as the heat returns to her face, setting her haversack down on a tabletop. "I sort of moved without thinking."

"I'm starting to think that's what sets champions apart from the rest—that instinct," he answers. "You know more people are going to be talking about you two than about anything else that got said at the conference." He sighs. "I can't believe I got shown up by my own baby brother."

She shakes her head to clear it. "Tell me all that wasn't a dream. Or I'll happily go on believing it was."

"It wasn't a dream, I was there!"

But of course it wasn't a dream. Her Rotom phone has been lighting up five times a minute with notifications she's pointedly ignoring. So instead she focuses on reconciling with this reality, on the mental picture of Hop standing with her at the front of the hall, smiling that smile she has never been able to resist.

"It still can't believe that just happened." She tosses a box of chocolates from a fan into her bag.

Leon chuckles. "You say that as if you didn't make that whole thing happen." There's a silence that promises more conversation. He delivers. "You know, between you and me…I was so excited for my reign to end, I forgot it would also mean having to lose. I'd really forgotten how it felt. The sting. But thank you."

"Thank you?" She murmurs. "That's a funny thing to thank me for."

"It was high time I lost; someone had to bring me back down to the ground before I got my head stuck in the clouds, like Rose did." He shakes his head, but goes on. "I never thought I'd be able to stand seeing my baby brother fall in love, either. But now I know it's you, I'm not so worried!" Here he pauses, and turns to point his index finger dramatically in her direction. "Take care of him, okay?"

She grins despite herself and offers a thumbs-up. "I'll do my best."

Folding his arms, he nods, satisfied. "Well, I'm off to take a much needed break," he says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "But if you need any tips on living the champion life, or dealing with Hop being annoying, I'm always a call away."

Gloria chortles. "I'll keep it in mind."

When Gloria steps out of the back room and into the corridor, she's startled to find Hop sitting cross-legged in the corridor with his head buried nose-deep in his Dubwool's flank.

He springs right up at the sight of her, and launches into a ramble about being excited to see her, and then about how pretty she looks despite an entire day talking to the press, and then, "is it weird for me to say that? I mean, it's the truth, I think you're just the coolest! I guess you already know that, but—"

Pretending to walk right past him, she hooks an arm about his elbow and begins to pull him along. "It's not weird! I'll never get tired of hearing you say nice things about me. You're pretty cool yourself, you know."

Seeing his face brighten just like that, as if she's just given him a stash of gold nuggets, makes her heart flutter. He rotates himself around so he's now holding her elbow. Gloria feels his hand slide down to hers; she takes the cue and interlocks their fingers. Dubwool bleats happily, trotting after.

"I watched the videos of us," Hop laments. "They're everywhere. Mum has seen it. Raihan has seen it. Even the Ball Guy has seen it! They all texted me in the past twenty minutes asking when this happened. And why it took so long! Can you believe it?" He clutches his forehead with his free hand. "The Ball Guy even offered me a Love Ball, and don't even get me started on Raihan, you have no idea how bad he can be when he has something legitimate to tease you about."

"I can't believe you," she exclaims, "giving me an Applin and then waiting two weeks for a reply, or something." She turns and takes an indulgently long look at her friend, her crush, her rival. "I appreciate it, though. That you thought about how I might feel about it. That's what I love about you."

He laughs sheepishly. "It turned out to be for nothing, though, didn't it? If I'd just said something sooner…"

"To be fair, I avoided the subject even longer than you did. You, at least, tried to say something. Even if it took a bloody press conference for the message to get through." She sighs. "By tomorrow, the whole of Galar is going to know that the new Champion and the previous Champion's brother are dating." She pauses. "Wait, we aren't really officially…you do want to date, right?"

The question catches him off guard. "Y-yeah. Yes, I do! Gloria, do you want to be my partner?"

"Do I?" she teases. "I don't think I've ever wanted anything more."

Hop squeezes her hand tighter, laughing. "Sorry, this all still feels surreal, you know? Like I'm about to wake up," he says.

"Well, I can say it again so you can be sure. I love you, I love you," Gloria slips in a surprise cheek kiss between this word and the next, "I love you."

While a blush surges across his face, she fiddles around in her pocket and sends out Pip. The little dragon creature who began it all shuffles along in front of them on his stubby legs, the aroma of apples wafting through the corridor as they approach the exit.

A nasty surprise waits outside, in the form of a posse of newsagents right at the door. The semicircle surges in on them the moment they step through—with a yell of fright, the pair leap into a ready stance and have the same idea in the same moment.

"Pip, Protect!"

"Headbutt!"

While Dubwool bowls through the crowd and Pip sets up a shield around them, Hop snatches Gloria's hand and they sprint through the fray, returning their Pokemon to their Pokeballs. Down through the wind of the glowing Wyndon streets they fly, from one circle of lamplight to another. Down the main thoroughfare and across the bridge, starting to laugh, past pointing pedestrians who get their phone cameras rolling as they zip past.

The park is deserted, and they land on a park bench in a tumble, panting and giggling. When they turn to each other, Gloria reaches out to caresses his cheek, and Hop's answering grin is overflowing with thrill. Her heart aches at how adorable he is when he's excited, at knowing she's the one he's excited for.

They lean together for an exhilarating and much-awaited sequel to the kiss in the conference room, and this time no one is watching.

A flash of red jolts them out of their kiss, but it's only Pip leaving his Pokeball of his own accord. He nudges at their knees to be picked up; together they lift him onto their laps and lay their hands upon his back, laughing even then.

"Gloria," murmurs Hop. "Can I say something?"

"Be my guest, cutie."

She sees the surprise hit him, drawing a chuckle. "It's just, you've been my best friend for so long," he whispers, "I can't wrap my head around the fact that that's changed."

"It hasn't changed!" Turning to him, Gloria snatches and squeezes his hand. "You're still my best friend. And my best rival. But you're also my partner now. All three things at once. That's all right, yes?"

"All three at once, I like it," Hop says with an enthusiastic nod. Gloria rests her head in the crook of his neck, draping a hand on Pip. Pip mewls between them.

"And no more beating around the bush. Promise?"

He lays his hand on hers. "Promise."

By tomorrow, the chances of peace together will be few and far between. There will be a thousand reporters and a circuit of press conferences, and who knows what else beyond. But that, like all the other battles they've fought together, is one they're more than ready to take on.

"When we head back to Postwick, we're going on a proper date," says Gloria. "But for now…this is good."

And that's all it has to be. It turns out that for friends who've known each other almost a decade, there certainly is a lot they don't know about each other yet—like how nice it is to be wrapped up in each other's arms, in the crisp autumn air and the aroma of apples. They share one kiss after another, watching the city lights and the passing pedestrians blur into indistinctness in the background. Pip dozes on their laps, and the sound of rustling leaves joins the tinny music of a faraway mall.

"It's perfect," Hop agrees.