#germ writes

He hears it again: Maaaaaxxxx… It’s not his internal faux-dad’s monologue, it’s an actual voice coming from downstairs. The bat’s energy flicks like a tongue, moving in his peripheral. He holds it tight, creaking open the door, and dodging the floorboards that’ll awaken his dad or sister. Creeping individual toe by individual toe, he opens the door where the stairwell ends just a fraction and peeks to the glass door.

It’s Johnny.

It’s Johnny. 

“Maaaaxxx…” Johnny says, leaning against the door, cheek squished and mournful. He’s saying it loud enough to be heard by every neighbor. He’s saying it loud enough that Max could hear him from his room. In the dark, Johnny’s eyes are visible, like visible. Isaac levels of bright. They’re orange beacons situated on his face.

Max considers leaving, but it’s Johnny. Johnny. His school bully facade is the most important thing to the guy—to break that archetype and go to Max’s house goes into stalkery bully that Johnny wouldn’t even consider touching if it was genuine. Johnny’s here because he needs something.

Probably.

..Right?

Max creeps out of the stairwell, putting his bat on the table. It protests, sticking a ramekin full of keychain pieces to it as an argument. He grabs the keys in the cabinet, and unlocks the door. “What do you want? It’s the middle of the ding-dang night, Johnny. And you’re creeping on my porch.”

“Max!” Johnny says, visibly returning to his old self, rather than a kicked cat Max has left on the porch, in the rain, during the Fourth of July. “I saw somethin’ weird out, and I know weird’s the name of your club. So you should come w’me. You like that sorta thing, don’t you?”

“Johnny, what do you think our club is called?”

“Weird Activity Club,” Johnny answers. He’s been invited. He knows what the name is. Max squints at him, even though it only worsens his eyesight. Again: middle of the night. Everything is dark.

Johnny squints back.

“I need my bat,” Max says, turning around inside. Johnny whoots outside, but waits patiently. He doesn’t even enter. “You’re not coming in?” Max asks. “You come to my house at, at—” he checks the wall clock. “At three-fourteen AM, you cajole out my name for several minutes, and then you don’t even…? You’re weird, Johnny. Weirder than even you know.”

“Isn’t this your house or somethin’? You slip in the freezer and sleep like a squirrel?” 

Max turns around, bat with ramekin of little toys and all, and says: “You think I sleep in the store? Are you asking me if I hibernate?”

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “You hibernate?”

“Why would I—why would I… no, nope, we’re not gonna get into it. Just show me where it’s weird, and drop the hibernation thing.”

“Yah, whatever you want.” Johnny looks at him. As Max passes through the threshold of the door, Johnny becomes very close. He’s extremely warm to the touch, even warping the air a half-inch or so from his skin. And his eyes are unreal; they’re the kind of thing where you look at him and go right, this guy’s possessed. 

Max used to think that his common black energy was a blessing, but Johnny’s simmering orange glow is like a poison dart frog. Danger, danger, it screams. And he barely even knows it. The duality of Johnny’s intensity as he faces the world versus his spirit’s energy bleeding into Johnny as a person—Max stops for a second in front of him, pulled into Johnny’s orbit.

“Y’good?” Johnny asks. But he doesn’t look away. He never does.

“M’good,” Max says, noncommittally. “You got a place in mind?” 

“Yeah, but you were lookin’ funky, like you got something in yer eye,” Johnny says, not looking away or moving. They stand there for who knows how long—just drawn into each other.

“Can we go, or..” Max says. He purses his lips, tucking them out of the way. “This is kinda..” Not bad, it’s just—new. Middle school new. Max is beginning to feel frantic to escape, but refuses to look away first.

Johnny’s the bigger person when he looks away from Max. “S’in the forest. Looks like a house.” 

Max exhales through his nose. “Right, we love houses in forests here in Mayview.”

The trip to the forest feels longer in the stretch of the night that they’re in. It reminds Max so much of the Ghost Train that he keeps looking over his shoulder, expecting a hazy orange light to pierce through the trees—or a hissing horn just outside of his peripheral. Johnny trucks on with no mind of the spirits nearby. Max sometimes wonders if he actually does see them, or got lucky a few times being asked what he saw.

“Do you actually..” Max starts, suddenly feeling like he’s actually following a bully into a dark corner of Mayview with no witnesses. The longer they go, the more uneasy Max feels. But what else could be the answer? Johnny’s eyes glow. 

“Do y’know you glow black when you’re uneasy?” Johnny says, looking back at him. There’s this—sincerity to his face. He looks like he’s always looking at Max for the first time each time. That intensity again. “Like, I’unno, anti-glow… it goes all black. I can’t even see the trees behind you.”

“Oh,” Max says. He feels his energy recede, like a cat’s fur going down. “It’s that bad?”

“Like a fart,” Johnny says, smoothly. And then he’s on the trail again, Max following closely behind.

xx

By the time Johnny stops moving, Max is wishing he’d stayed in bed at least pretending to be asleep than walking through the forest with Johnny in the middle of the night. Just as he imagines himself in his bed, Johnny stops moving and forces them to collide. Max smells smoke from Johnny’s shirt. “That’s it,” Johnny says. Max looks up, looking at the slanted, fungi-infested house in front of them. 

In the dark, it’s icky creepy, all yellowed walls and a nauseating tilt. Max’s mind races in an attempt to remember where in the heck he’s seen this place before, blinking at the house with no words coming out of his mouth. It’s definitely a fit-for-the-genre of the forest house; the windows are perfectly maintained but there’s creeping ivy pouring out of the bottom of the house and so many mushrooms it feels like a forager’s dream.

Brain: Stuck in sleep mode. Max: stalling like an engine. Johnny: About to start chewing the door to get in.

“Isn’t it weird?” Johnny asks, turning to Max. He reads his face for a second, then eventually says, “y’seen it before?”

“..Yes? I think so? It looks—weird and bad at night, honestly. Like it’s trying to creep me out on purpose.” Even so, Max creeps toward the window, Johnny in tow. He smushes his cheek against the glass and hides the moonlight with his hand, peering into the house.

In there, he sees the Doorman’s coat in the background as he—it—wanders.

Max’s heart drops. His energy flicks like a tongue, exploring the air. His bat grows interested. “I have—yup. This place is actually a secret, though, so we must—go… Johnny?”

Johnny is steaming straight Fanta, a candle-lit beacon standing beside Max’s form. “So what?” He asks. His spirit’s energy whips and wags, moving like unsteady flame. “Y’really not gonna help me break down this door, bully-style?”

Max feels a wry smile creep onto his face. “Am I a trope to you? Is this identity politics between bully and bullee?” 

Johnny has the audacity to pull his body away from Max’s magnetism. He looks even offended. “I wanna see what’s in it, tho. Y’already saw it, so that don’t count. Y’didn’t see it w’me.”

“Oh,” Max says, feeling a little out of place. Yeah, of course he would—and if Max just pretends that he doesn’t know the doorman—that’s still keeping a secret..right? As long as he doesn’t tell Johnny what the doorman’s deal is, that’s keeping the secret. Max also reminds himself he never promised the doorman anything, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“If you put it like that, I guess,” Max says, readjusting his grip on his bat. Johnny’s face changes to one of fulfilled delight. “I don’t actually know how to get in.. but—”

Johnny is a moving comet through the dark: he’s standing beside Max one minute and then he’s standing against the door, trying to push it open. Max watches him try to grip the doorknob but he fails; it jiggles but doesn’t turn like it’s locked. He pushes on the door, and when it doesn’t move, pulls hard on the doorknob like it’ll lodge it out of place. “Bat?” Johnny asks, looking at him, gesturing to his bat. “Bat.”

 “Bat? Bat, right, I have the breaking down doors weapon.” He pads the air around the door, shooing Johnny back. He does so dutifully while Max prepares a homerun shot at the door, hoping to crack it high enough that they can unlock it from the other side.

Black energy plumes around his body, both from his bat and his body as he prepares himself for the hit. Guilt eats at him for disturbing the doorman after Isaac already got so much from him for showing Max anyway, but brotherly shame always makes the next punch hit harder. 

The bat’s energy licks the air, ready to be back in line of sight with another spirit. That’s the thing with his eccentric little weapon is that it’s much like Johnny—always ready to prove itself.

“Do it, Max!” Johnny yells, and it spurs Max on to hit the door as hard as he can. KA-CRRNCH goes the door as the bat makes contact with it; huge strides of black energy like bat wings streaming from the tool as it lays there in contact with the door. Max gingerly plucks it out of the hole, staring at the successful break-in.

Johnny whoots, throwing his arms into the air. Max grins, too, feeling alight with exhaustion as it begins to transform into euphoria.

And then two little red eyes appear, and the door is not fixed, but the door is shoved in with new planks and what sounds like duct tape as the hole is filled. 

“What was’at?” Johnny asks. “Some kinda MacGuffin we’re s’posed to know its name or something? A black herring? That’s not cool.”

“I don’t know what it was,” Max says quietly. “I don’t remember seeing one of those last I visited.”

“Plan B, then. Plan better late than bnever.” Johnny says it so smoothly and cordially that it takes Max a second to think about what he’s—they’re—doing. He looks behind him just in time to see Johnny’s soaring frame, alight with orange energy, jumping through the manse’s window.

The glass crashes around him before Max even has the wherewithal to scream his name. As reflex occurs as quickly as a cat’s, Max jumps through the window straight after, hackles already up.

“It smells like gran’ma,” Johnny says, nose positively pressed into the floorboards, Max on top.

“You—you!!! You, you, stinky, you’re—I knew you were trouble!” The red-eyed creature hisses from several directions, its eyes only visible like a deer in infrared headlights. “I remember you—and you stink.” 

“Gee,” Max murmurs into Johnny’s back. He reluctantly peels himself off of his back, staring at the creature in the rafters. “And here I thought we were best friends. That look of undeniable fury you gave me through the door was basically platonic courtship.”

“I was not—oooh, you infuriate me. You’re making me mad on purpose, you clown.”

“Me?” Max asks, still sitting on the dip of Johnny’s spine. “I’m more of a jester, thanks. Clowns are creepy, and I’m practically cute. Don’t insult me, or clowns, by insinuating we are even remotely alike. Your makeup, however…”

“Max,” Johnny says, which sounds a lot like mhhx, as Johnny is still pressed against the floorboards. He pushes his face to the side so his cheek is against the floor rather than his mouth. His face is flushed. 

“Want me to get off?” Max asks. He’s still sitting on him, and as the apparent situation begins to take hold, Max’s face also flushes. Johnny doesn’t reply, which is mortifying in itself, and then it’s Max scurrying off of his body without thinking too hard about it.

Johnny looks at him from the floor, pluming orange energy like giant peacock feathers flying in the wind, and Max looks at him for only a second before tearing his eyes off of Johnny’s face. “That was cool. Was that a friendship fusion?” Max says, trying to get his face to cool off, or his heart stop racing.

As Johnny peels himself off of the floor to an upright position, he says, “Nah, a fusion is our souls connectin’, our situationship makes it inappropriate for the time an’ place. Fusion ain’t for the weak-hearted, Max.” Max makes a face like what the 

Anyway, Johnny doesn’t seem to notice or mind. He seems seriously in thought about what exactly would be a proper situation for friendship fusion with Max.

As he thinks on it, Max looks up just in time to see the Doorman come into view. Back to Plan A: AHH.

“A spirit!” Max shouts, feigning ignorance, just as the Doorman points to his door, guided by Nin: “The Manse’s integrity!”

Johnny springs up like a dog awoken by the mailman. “Your door was in our way to comin’ in! ..What’s the place, anyway?”

Max springs up beside Johnny and grabs him by the back of his shirt. Johnny responds immediately, one hand behind him to hold onto Max’s arm, defensive positioning. Max feels suddenly very warm, and that’s not even where Johnny is touching Max.

“The Slanted Manse is not for you,” the Doorman says, sweeping his eyes through the space. He lands on Max, who is pantomiming decapitating himself over and over. “E—Either of you ne’er-do-wells! Leave at once!”

“You can’t tell me what t’do—ain’t that right, Max?” Johnny’s nerves are disappearing into righteous light, making him show off his energy like peacock feathers. The Doorman’s body language shifts into one of shock.

Max suddenly feels uneasy. “Nope, I’m getting bad vibes! Out the window, with you! He’s gonna get scary, and I haven’t slept!”

Max hears indistinct whispering and then the Doorman shouts: “That is correct, spectral trespassers! My door opens to hell!”

Johnny looks like he totally believes it. He must have forgotten that Max has been here before in the performance between the Doorman and himself.

He doesn’t see any friendly faces, except for an awkward chaperoning Mr. Spender, who he ducks out of eyesight from. Max feels the inner lining of his pockets, that shiny feel of cheap suits, to calm his nerves. To be honest with himself, he’s not sure if he wants to see friends here, or if he’ll feel worse and more self-conscious about his attire because of that. Max remains ducked out of sight for a long while, considering his options like a game of Battleship.

When he eventually stands again, he finds Johnny standing opposite of him in a corner. He wears nothing majorly different about himself—rather, he’s just wearing a sleek little black windbreaker on top of some black jeans. It’s nothing special, it’s not even anything formal, but it makes him stick out from his normal self.

Johnny catches his eye across the way when he feels someone—Max—staring, and his face changes slightly to one of deranged delight. He leans forward, towards Max but still a whole gymnasium away, making about as forceful eye contact as he physically can. Then he’s beelining out of the gym, still making eye contact, until he disappears out of sight beyond the doors.

Max stands there, rooted in his spot, no more or less comfortable than before. Honestly, though, probably less.

He finds the child-friendly punch before he even begins to try and decipher Johnny’s eye contact and thinks about how Johnny must be cursing whatever God is watching Mayview that he doesn’t have Max-specific telepathy.

He downs three tiny plastic see-through cups in one and a half minutes. He is extraordinarily careful not to spill any on his suit, even as that earthworm returns and sobs around him. He looks down at its no eyes face. “Why are you crying? You’re not wearing a suit you definitely don’t need to be wearing.” 

It doesn’t respond, probably because it’s crying. Max considers offering it some punch. Then he gains any right mind about the situation, and doesn’t do that.

When he’s on his way to turn to the doors to find Johnny himself, Johnny has already materialized not five feet from the end of the snack table. Max jumps like a startled cat, bending backwards to assess the situation. “You,” he says. 

“Me,” Johnny says back, immediately down to clown, mimicking Max’s positioning. “What about me? You thinkin’ about me?”

“I try not to,” Max says before he can stop it. He says it like how he talks to Zoey: Nose scrunched, wry frown on his face. I—try—not—to. 

“You’re failin’ pretty bad at that,” Johnny says, patting Max’s shoulder comfortingly. “Somebody had to tell you eventually.” Pat, pat, pat. “Yer gonna figure out one day, Max.”

“Figure out—what? What am I figuring out?” Max is feeling sweaty at the pits in this suit, and by the time he’s done gesticulating at the sky, Johnny has repositioned himself into a pose where he’s leaning against the wall. His jacket is somewhat unzipped, showing a pattern on his shirt, but not quite anything Max can make out.

“You can’t see through my crypticism, Max, I’m bein’ …cryptic.” Johnny says. Max’s look at him is somewhere between being appalled with two p’s and total blank acceptance that sometimes this is just how Mayview is, Johnny included.

Johnny poses for as long as he can with Max’s complete silence, and then he folds, unzipping his jacket the full way to let himself breathe. SUN’S OUT, FUN’S OUT, is what his shirt reads and then in very small text around the bottom of it, written like fine print: you heard it here first folks fun’s out and skepticism is in. today we’re studying kant and the doctrine of virtue. Max suppresses a smile he will not be defeated by. “Anyway, m’hot in here, do y’wanna blow this popsicle stand, or is just lookin’ stuffy n’ uncomfortable a pass time for ya?”

Max tears his eyes off of Johnny’s shirt, still holding his breath to avoid laughing. He croaks out, “anywhere but here.”

“Roof?” Johnny asks with a mad man’s grin. He points towards the ceiling. “We know a spot.”

“We—? Yeah, you know what, yes. Go, go.” Max takes off his jacket to let his skin breathe and Johnny takes off his—perhaps for camaraderie,  but he never seems bothered by his own heat—as they dash out of the gymnasium to go to the hall.

Johnny wordlessly Tokyo Drifts to a stop and beckons Max over to an emergency stairwell. He opens it, though, and no alarm sounds—so they run up the stairs. Johnny never seems to run out of energy, so Max chases after, afraid to lose him in the dark and dingy stairwell.

They’re only illuminated by red emergency lights floor after floor with no hope of light at the end of the tunnel. But Max is no quitter, even though he probably should be at some level, so he chases after him turn after turn. Only once does Johnny turn back the second Max starts lagging and says, “don’t you go pretendin’ you can’t keep up.”

Max guffaws, slapping wildly at the air behind Johnny. “Just—go! Off with you!”

Johnny doesn’t go off with himself fast enough for Max’s liking, with frequent check-ins that are just a dart of his eye towards Max’s direction. Max catches them, but they don’t make eye contact long enough to call him out on any of them. The trip to the roof is grueling, especially without his bat as a makeshift walking stick like he sometimes uses it for. 

Johnny doesn’t seem fazed, pushing open the door to the roof top with his shoulder. Cool night air hits Max like a wet cloth, reminding him of how godforsaken sweaty he is. Johnny puts his jacket on the ground, so Max follows suit, letting his fall on top of Johnny’s black windbreaker.

Johnny cranes his neck like a sickly egret. “Y’hear that?” 

Max cranes his neck elegantly in comparison. He has to close his eyes to process the sound, then he nods, slowly. “It’s the music from the gym. Does Coach Oop like, have an OST? How did you know that this’d be possible?”

“It’s the jense.” Johnny says. He shrugs noncommittally.

Max stares blankly at him. “The what?”

“The Johnny Sense, get with it,” he says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. But he looks at Max’s continuing blank stare and shrugs it off again, letting it wash over him. “We got our own private dance floor, Max. S’a specialsuation.” Johnny says, factually.

Max’s face threatens to bloom into such a complete and utter flush that he’d be danging himself to a life of interrogation by Johnny. This was premeditated. Was Johnny waiting for him to get to the dance, and then take him up here? Max’s face only gets hotter the more he thinks about it.

“How’d you know this was my first dance?” Max asks, completely taken aback by his own sincerity.

“..Didn’t,” Johnny says. “S’just special ‘cuz it’s you n’ me.”

Max is gonna die.

“Yeah, I—yeah, I guess so.” 

Johnny looks at him with his head tilted like he’s thinking really hard about the combination of his answer and Max’s, and how red Max’s face is, and just the general continuous reshaping of Max’s self-confidence that Johnny seems to do to him. Good and bad, no less. All depends on the day with their dynamic.

Johnny rides his hand through his hair. A nervous habit Max is slowly picking up on. “Ollie let me practice dancin’, so no nerving here. If it makes y’feel better. Or..” a wry smile plasters itself on Johnny’s face—a cruel parallel to Max’s own habits—“y’could just admit that Baxbrugh didn’t have any cool songs, n’ you don’t know any songs playin’.”

“You—I—do you think I’m sheltered? Johnny, dance and acrobatics are like, practically the same stat. You’re gonna get outdanced. So hard.” Max gets in prime acrobating position, Johnny following suit.

The mortifying part is that Max doesn’t know the song playing—and he can barely hear the words, but there’s percussion and bass and that’s enough—his mom wasn’t punk for nothing. It’s a pose-off mixed with a dash of acrobatics, only a few dances here and there, but they do get close once or twice. Enough to run into each other, to feel Johnny’s laughter on his face.

“Mom,” Johnny says.

Max unfurls, stretching its arms over its head, making Johnny wanna stretch, too. “And that makes you constipated?”

Johnny huffs. “Makes me brain constipated to think of old stuff,” he turns away from the shadow to continue walking. The shadow will stay attached, so he knows Max is close. “Y’still capable of being brain constipated?”

“My brain bowel movements are fine, Johnny, thanks.” 

Johnny watches as the shadows that are cast from the trees suddenly have eyes, and the shadows from the animals have eyes, too. Max hops from one shadow to the next, always appearing in the dark edges of the forest. Johnny slots his hand against a tree to block the sun out in a tiny box, and Max appears there, too. Its eyes blinking at Johnny, and then breaking out into a wry grin, like it knows a little too much.

“Yer a weird guy, Max,” Johnny says as he leaves the tree to have sun on all parts of it again, as Max’s smile disappears with the shadow.

“I’m not much of a guy at all, Johnny,” Max says. As a rabbit hops in pace with Johnny, Max exists in its shadow, as its shadow, or maybe a lone shadow devoid of origin, keeping pace only not to be left behind. “You’re the only guy here.”

Johnny stares at the deer that Max finds haven in. It is a strange, bug-eyed creature, completely docile. Max sits in its shadow, a complete inverse of the deer. Max used to be a dangerous thing in the Jhonny house. Johnny doesn’t remember the story, but his mom Ronnie used t’say that one day, when he was still little tiny and crying all the time, Max appeared in his crib.

Johnny was nowhere to be seen—which alarmed Ronnie a lot. Where’s my kid? She asked to Max, who was also just a little baby, but it never cried. It stared at her with a neutral—maybe curious, if you wanted to give it that benefit—expression, never smiling or frowning or doing anything at all.

So Ronnie took her a tome in their house and drew a sigil on Max’s forehead, between its eyes. And when it burned away white like steam, it revealed that Max wasn’t human, was a thing not a boy. And so she knew that Max was a replacement for Johnny. That won’t do, I need my kid. Do you have my kid, Changeling? Said Ronnie, who was knowledgeable about this since she was a great sorcerer.

Max said nothing since it was still a baby.

And then this is the part that gets fuzzy. Ronnie told the story that she exorcised Max, and in doing so, revealed Johnny. And then Max became a shadow. She also said that Max wasn’t a good Changeling to start because it looked nothing like Johnny, and so was immediately obvious as a replacement. She said that Max’s exorcism wasn’t painful for it, and she found Johnny quickly outside, safe as a flower in spring.

But when Johnny asks Donnie  Johnny’s father, he says that Ronnie created a great fire in all of her panic and didn’t care about a damn person in the house—not the thing in their baby’s crib, not herself, or him—and threw Max in a blazing fire to get Johnny back.

And Max never screamed, just watched her through the roaring flames.

And when she was done, Johnny was outside in an old pot full of weeds and flowers, crying his eyes out. He also had a shadow that didn’t match his movements, and when you looked away just enough, it opened its eyes.

“Yer a dead guy,” Johnny says to Max, who is pretending it fits nicely in the deer shadow, when it does not. “Dead.. fairy. Undead?”

“I’m not a fairy, that’s totally wrong.” Max grumbles. “I’m fey. I’m supernatural, I’m not magical. You’re the magical one here, Johnny.”

Johnny lifts his hand and summons fire that trickles upward from his fingers and the etching on his palm. It doesn’t hurt, it’s not even hot. He got only a fraction of his mom’s magic, but it defines him down to the inch—that’s what she used to say. He got a bit of wild fire magic, never really being able to control it like other people do with theirs. He stares at the fire and tries to imagine himself in it, being one with it, and being what it wants.

He only controls it a little, and it’s mostly with his emotions. Max watches with wide eyes. It likes Johnny’s fire a lot. Fire casts shadow, where Max lives. It puts them in a space of symbiosis that keeps them both equally as safe from the world outside them and with each other.

“That’s magical. Straight. Up. Magic. Bro.” Max says. The fire isn’t big enough to cast a shadow on its own, but Max still tries to linger closer on the deer’s crawling shadow as the sun gets closer to setting. It looks like it wishes it could touch the fire, or that the fire was big enough to be attached to.

“Bro?” Johnny asks, snuffing the fire by closing his fist.

“Bro.” Max says. It’s hard to tell if it ever nods, but its voice certainly sounds like it’s nodding.

Johnny likes that this ended up the way it did, though. Johnny being able to cast and use fire, and Max being there with him. Max is his friend, and didn’t mind not being a child to the Jhonny family, but rather a mix of a welcomed familiar, a friend, and a nuisance.

And Max never complained.

The journey to the Lake Grave isn’t an arduous one, but it’s one that requires great mental and magical energy. It’s the only part of Mayview that exists outside of Mayview’s timeline, separate of both difference and consequence. The ground is oobleck, desert-colored, and is one of the largest wells of magic in the world. It’s a great and unique power Johnny probably doesn’t know the half of.

Johnny has only ever been able to come here with Max’s company. It’s not that it’s a portal of some kind that Johnny just doesn’t know the spell for, it’s more weirder than that. In Johnny’s mind, it’s because of his and Max’s naturally prodigious team-up that allows them to enter the sacred space. In fact, he can just ask why the heck he can only come here with Max. Max’d probably know.

“When I try to come here by myself, the forest says no-no, you ain’t got a key. Why’s that? Why are you a key, Max? Hey?” Johnny talks to the dirt and bugs around his feet. It’s easier than trying to find Max as it hops and jumps between every little blade of grass, every animal, even Johnny. 

“M’not a key, Johnny. It’s a wish,” Max explains. It’s good at explaining. Johnny likes to think it sees a special, underground world, one where all the answers are written in front of its eyeballs. “The lake likes wishes, and likes granting them. You go into the forest for a reason. You walk. You..have fun? Die? Whatever people do in stories? When we go together, Johnny, I want you to make it to the end. And when you go, you want someone else to make it, like me.”

That’s not right.

Johnny wants Max to be happy.

Maybe he thinks that going to the Lake Grave will make Max happy.

“But when I go by myself, I also wanna make it there, all to the end. Don’t I?” Johnny is suddenly feeling very confused about his own reasons for things.

“Everyone wants something for themselves,” Max says, sighing. “It’s not enough. There’s power in wanting someone else to get there.. it’s not altruism, it’s just.. the end of a story. You know books?”

“I do know books,” Johnny replies wryly. Max has even seen him read.

“You turn the page to get to the end. And the characters like, do stuff. They do stuff. And you help them do stuff by getting them closer to the end. And maybe they die, but you still did it. You still got to the end. That’s what it wants.”

“That’s kinda dumb,” Johnny says. “Y’don’t just help ‘em just to let the story finish. There’s—there’s other stuff involved. Like, being friends. I’m not just wishin’ you to make it to the Lake so you can just go there. You bein’ happy is the goal.”

Max goes still, which is an odd feeling for both of them. When Max doesn’t move with Johnny, he gets this weird feeling that the wind has stopped breezing past him, or that the sun is dodging him directly, and he’s left with the remnants. When Max doesn’t move with him in his shadow, it’s like everything is off-kilter, a sinking feeling. So Johnny stops moving too, searching for it in the dark.

“Max?” Johnny asks. The shadows in the forest are plentiful, but too thin, too lifeless. The shadows that Max exist inside of are full, blackest night, squiggly. They move of their own accord and expand darkness beyond just a recreation of a shape. Max is darkness, but darkness is not Max.

It would make sense better if you knew it like Johnny does.

But you can’t since Johnny knows Max best of all. Best of any magical person, ever. Best of anyone, ever. 

Johnny feels fire arcing up the etchings of his palms like lights coming alive along a string, and then up age-old scars of twigs and pebbles from Johnny’s youth. Tiny cracks and dry skin and tiny pink scars, all coming alive with bright red energy. It bursts alive and dims like fire, but has not yet burst alive as bonfires tend to.

He feels the hairs on his arm begin to smolder.

“Max?”

Fire wants to burn, that’s what Ronnie used to tell Johnny back when he first figured out he could access his innate magic. Fire’s always got something it can convince you deserves—wants to—or likes to burn. And you gotta tell that fire, you gotta say—

“We’re moving,” Max says. When Johnny leaves his own head, he stares down at his shadow, which has grown eyes. It’s less that the shadow itself has protruding eyeballs like people do, but it’s just—it’s like a dream, and you know it’s eyes you’re looking. Max has got eyes. It looks like its own boy form of itself, standing at its full height in Johnny’s wake. The remnant of that little baby that Ronnie and Donnie saw back then. “I haven’t left you, Johnny. Don’t stop moving.” It sounds embarrassed. Kind of shy.

Fire moves fast on wind, kid. Ronnie used to say. But it doesn’t do well when it’s the one getting blown on. Move fast, and it won’t ever make you burn with it. Johnny wonders then if Max heard her say that to him, too.

“If we keep moving, we’ll meet the end before long. Like very before long, I can see the entrance. Like, two steps, Johnny.” Johnny turns around fast from Max and closer to the dying light, feeling the wisps of flame and heat begin to dim and sway, then eventually die, darkening Johnny’s scars to a charred burgundy rather than an aged pink.

The entrance to the Lake Grave is an impossibly dense forest, so dense that it used to make Johnny hesitate before he tried to walk through. Scraggly old trees and twigs that grab his hair and thorns that slice his ankles; it’s a forest Johnny used to look at and argue with Max until midnight about not going in because it can’t be the right place.

Now, Johnny closes his eyes and holds his breath, shielding his face with his arms, and marches onward. He thinks, wishes, as hard as he can: I want Max to go. I want Max to go.

Johnny’s thoughts transform into different ones, as they always do when he enters the Lake Grave. I want Max to be happy. I want him to be my friend. I want to protect him like he does with me.

Eventually, those thoughts become wishes. I wish Max will stay with me.

And then the Lake Grave appears in front of him, as expansive as a mountain range, as colorful as the sunset. Johnny doesn’t stop moving as soon as he enters—the Lake Grave will swallow him whole if he’s not moving, but it’s as solid as stone as long as he walks on it. Max’s arrival is always late here because there’s no shadows. The sun is omnipresent, over the top of Johnny’s head, removing even the thought of darkness from this place.

There’s huge rock formations stretching towards the sky, colorful, sandy pillars, like trees that have died and never regrown. They are the only thing allowed to stay still in the Lake Grave, the rocks have erupted out from the bottom and can last the whole way—they exist because of, not in spite of, the strangeness of the Lake Grave.

And there is power here, power that calls to Johnny and back to it like a sound loop, or a closed rune. So much power, generous power, that it gives Johnny the ability to be. Maybe dangerously so, if it weren’t here, but it is. Johnny throws his arms in the air, feet moving and body leaning and lungs expanding to call on that fire he just snuffed out moments earlier.

A powerful spell component is the sorcerer’s body interacting with the space around them. The second is their want of the thing, the outcome. Johnny exists and so does fire. He wishes for it. He wants it to burn. He wants it to live. He wants it to be big and grand and unapologetic. He wants it to thrive. And so he thrives with it, inspired by its bravery.

The fire that Johnny summons in the Lake Grave eats the ground and spits out soot and smoke, feeding back into the sand endlessly like an hourglass feeding itself. The fire he makes and feeds is enormous, and wanted, and grand.

This is the one thing of his mom that no one can take away from him, not here.

Johnny builds the fire, making sure to always be present in his body, this euphoria, and in it, a little bit of fear.

He builds the fire high enough that its flames begin to tickle and snap at the heels of the ever-present sun. And then the smoke is consuming the sun, just enough that the fire creates a shadow behind Johnny. 

And with the power here, Max is able to be three-dimensional as he arrives. A little shadow-boy around Johnny’s age, a little shorter than Johnny is tall, and it has the world’s biggest grin. Johnny builds the fire to its peak and then he spins around, grasping Max by its wrists and then its hands and then intertwining their fingers. 

Johnny no longer has to build the fire because the wish is new and different and capable: I want to be with Max. 

And so the fire, and the power, they want this wish to be true, too. And so the fire grows, consuming the ever-present light, and letting a new light exist, one that casts shadow. Enough for Max and Johnny to dance. They clasp their hands together and spin, and laugh with one another. Max’s laugh is weird, bubbly. Popping in and out of existence. It makes Johnny laugh more.

In this strange, magical, timeless place, Max can grab Johnny by his face and kiss him. It’s hard to kiss and not stop moving, so they only touch lips once or twice in their movements, colliding awkwardly, and then keep moving, spinning, tapping their feet on the sand and kneeing each other in the calves.

Johnny stays there with Max for hours before the fire in Johnny’s heart and his spirit is satisfied and no longer wants to burn. And so they grasp each other’s shoulders and necks and sway and change what foot they’re putting the most weight on, just so slightly, like the ground is hot beneath them. The fire dwindles until it’s embers, and Max is gone, and so Johnny leaves the Lake Grave.

And when he re-emerges in the forest in the dark, it is so pitch-black it’s hard to make it home.

But he feels Max in the darkness, since it’s all shadow, and the embrace isn’t the same, but the embrace is there.

“That was fun n’ cool,” Johnny says, feeling relaxed in his bones. “Yer gonna come back w’me tomorrow, too?”

Incineroar is taller than all of them, not combined, but respectively; she walks with a swagger defined by her position as Johnny’s starter Pokémon. She’s good and she knows it, hanging around Johnny’s flank and posing behind him at every intersection. She warps the air around her and Johnny, haloing them in heat.

Max eyes Johnny’s belt. Two other Pokéballs. “He doesn’t have a full team?” Max whispers to Decidueye. “We’re gonna wipe the floor with this guy.”

Decidueye grunts something, eventually retracting his wing from Max’s shoulder so they can both stand tall. Max waves at Johnny. Decidueye waves at Incineroar. Max immediately flips a switch in his brain to go full-frontal taunt-mode. “You’re late! Like ten minutes late. Five more and you would’ve been considered a forfeit, eh? You were too scarreeeddd to fight good ol’ Puckett?” 

Johnny doesn’t even grace him with an answer until he’s in position up the road, a little elevated over Max and looking more important than he usually does when they’re in the same altitude. Incineroar pumps her fists in the air, streaming smoke between long, feline teeth. Johnny takes both Pokéballs from his belt and releases them; two zapping streams of red come out of the palm-sized capture gadgets, forming Arcanine and Torkoal at either side of him.

Arcanine is not significantly taller than Incineroar but it is noticeable given that Incineroar stands on two feet and Arcanine on four; she’s huge, orange, and fluffy, growling at Max and Decidueye. Bold streaks of black zip through her fur and fire prods out from her teeth. Torkoal is tiny--tiny in comparison to both Incineroar and Arcanine, but he pours smoke into the air. His shell is black and his body is fire-orange, but his expression is sleepy, like he just got woken up from a nap. Max knows that Torkoal has an ability to summon sunlight in matches, anddespite it being late afternoon, Max watches tendrils of light begin to crest over Mayview Middle like it was early morning. It gives Max the jeebies, unsettled by the power in a turtle that’s no taller than Johnny’s calf.

Arcanine won’t take her eyes off of Decidueye, though, making him nervous. He ruffles his feathers and stands tall, but he’s beginning to get agitated under the weight of her predatory watch.

Max isn’t going to be able to use him, he’s realizing. Johnny has put him already in a bad, bad spot by immediately having a type advantage here.

“Welllll, where’s your Pokémon, Max? Or are ya scared of Jhonny and his team of bullies? I’ll fight you an’ Decidueye, four on two if yer gonna make me!”

“What?” Max asks. “You’re just--you’re not even waiting for one-on-one rules? Are you some sort of minor championship heretic??” Max doesn’t doubt Johnny will smear him on the pavement three against one--or four against two, if they’re included--so he’s got no choice. Max feels over his belt for anyone who can help, here.

He needs Pokémon to physically rebuke Johnny and his crew. Fumbling for the right ones, Max picks out Steelix and Stoutland as he calls a command to Decidueye: “Get in the air, and I’ll call you when I need you. Go!” Decidueye looks at Max for a long moment, and then vanishes into the sky in a whirl of leaves, feathers, and the smell of spring.

Steelix is by far Max’s biggest Pokémon, the size of or bigger than most houses on Max’s street; its full body materializes after the red stream of the Pokéball has already disappeared, coiling up the road to Mayview Middle and onto the grass outside of it, forming a ring around Max and Johnny like Ouroboros. Its language, unlike the rest of Max’s Pokémon, doesn’t say its name--instead, it makes sounds like tearing steel and engine rumbling. It blocks out the sun that Torkoal summoned that peeked over  Mayview Middle’s roof. It rumbles and grumbles, purring like an old train.

Stoutland is a sort of increasingly disappointing size with the others involved in the team fight, standing closer to the boys’ height, but a little bit smaller. She’s impressively well groomed for just being brushed occasionally by Max or Zoey, often preferring to sit behind Max’s dad’s feet while he runs the corner store. She’s got a huge, platinum gold moustache that trails behind her on the ground. She’s blue, brown, and white, trading normal-looking for reliability in Max’s team.

She does stand in front of Max, blocking Arcanine’s line of sight. Stoutland snurfles beneath her moustache, a mix of a sound somewhere between a bark, a growl, and a wheeze. “Yeah, me too, girl.” Max presses his palm against the back of Stoutland’s neck. She has locked eyes with Arcanine, now, and it’s on. 

Max feels the air change. Johnny must, too, because he grins wild and deranged at Max. 

“Lonnie!” Johnny shouts, starting off the match. He points deadset at Max and Stoutland, “Darkest Lariat!”

“Lonnie?” Max asks, a little prematurely, as Incineroar--Lonnie--vaults over Johnny’s head to throw herself at Stoutland. Max takes a sharp inhale as Stoutland prepares herself for the hit. Incineroar is all bounding energy, reeling back her arms and sinking her fists into Stoutland’s side. Stoutland bends, groaning and whining. Max watches as Incineroar seems to literally get hotter next to Stoutland as a response of attacking.

“Stoutland!” Max yells out, after backing up, feeling a bit like a coward. “Work Up! Don’t let her take you down!”

Stoutland, a couch potato in her heart, growls thickly with sweat underneath her fur. She steadies herself next to Incineroar and rams her side into Incineroar’s front, uncaring about fire or consequence. Max sees a fire lit in her eyes.

“Lame! Status-affecting moves? Yer not gonna survive long like that at all! Lonnie, Thrash!”

“Stoutland, Take Down!” 

It happens all in one second--Incineroar’s eyes shine brightly as she truly focuses on her opponent. Stoutland won’t go down without a fight, though, so they collide as two big balls of fur--Incineroar reels her fists back high into the air and slams them into Stoutland’s back, as Stoutland rams forward to hit the brunt of her head against the center of Incineroar’s chest.

Stoutland lands a hard enough blow on Incineroar’s chest that she’s propelled backwards from the force of it, landing on her back. But the two consecutive hits against Stoutland’s back has caused her to fall on the ground, wobbly knees unable to rise. She looks exhausted from her attack, and she turns back to whine at Max.

He knows she’s finished the second she blinks her eyes slowly at him. She could go again, if she needed to. If he made her. But it would be cruel.

So he doesn’t, he takes out her Pokéball and recalls her in an instant. “Good job, girl,” he says to the gadget. “You did your best.”

Max looks up at where Johnny has come over to check on Incineroar, close enough that if Max really tried, he could use Sucker Punch against Johnny’s face and end the battle very quickly. But Max has honor, and ethics, and also there is that huge dog that breathes fire in the back to worry about.

“You good?” Johnny is asking to Incineroar. He pets her face, brushing her fur back. “You look confused. S’okay. I get that too when I punch really good.”

“You still on, or what?” Max calls out to Johnny. He looks up, then, eyes alight much like Incineroar. Steelix rumbles around them, as loud as a stadium. It makes a slow movement around them in a circle, entrapping Arcanine and Torkoal in the back to not go beyond their given guidelines. Max has a few feet behind him to back up before he meets steel.

It’s making a fighting ring. Johnny may not believe in the minor championship code of conduct, but Steelix is making sure they can’t run away. One of them has to lose.

Max handles his next Pokéball, letting it inflate in his hand and posing in a really cool way with it. He has to get Incineroar out of this fight, as quickly as possible. He slams the Pokéball on the ground to let Rattata out--she was one of his dad’s very first Pokémon back here in Mayview, and the only Pokémon Max has that’s named. Lovingly named Peter Jr., she also wears a golden and red sash that’s hung from her right shoulder down to her left hip.

“Yer not gonna even wait for her to get up?” Johnny asks accusingly. Max and Peter Jr. both stop, look at each other, and eventually Peter Jr. sits on the ground to wait.

“Oh--oh, so you get to just, fully charge me, breaking the rules of conduct for minor championship matches, but I have to wait for her to get up?? Get her up! Steelix won’t let us leave and I don’t have all night!”

“She didn’t charge ya before you brought out yer beasties,” Johnny says as he fishes something out of his pocket and feeds it to Incineroar. It looked like an underripe strawberry, still green. Incineroar’s eyes focus, dilating, as she rises from the ground and stands in front of Johnny. She snarls. Peter Jr. assumes position, swishing her tail like a pendulum. Back-forth, back-forth.

Behind Incineroar, Johnny is looking up at her with careful eyes, like he’s really thinking about what to do. He’s looking hard enough at her that she eventually looks back, giving him a thumbs up. Johnny relaxes.

Max can’t figure out Johnny as much as he may try, so he decides to ignore the gooey feelings of love between Pokémon and their trainers, so he yells: “Peter Jr., Quick Attack!” 

Out like lightning from between Max’s feet, Peter Jr. is the fastest thing on the field. It’s like she vanishes, only the tiny sound of the pitter patter of her feet audible. Steelix’s rumbling almost covers that, too. Incineroar immediately is vulnerable, eyes darting in every direction to try and intercept Peter Jr.’s attack. She grapples at the air, hoping to catch Peter Jr. by luck alone.

It’s not enough; Peter Jr. leaps into the air and becomes visible, opening her mouth and outstretching her claws and promptly scratching the absolute heck out of Incineroar’s face and biting her ear.

Incineroar yelps, smacking Peter Jr. off of her face and slamming her into the dirt. Incineroar looks irritated at best, but Peter Jr. is barely holding on. She rises from the dirt on unsteady legs, but rises nonetheless, holding on despite everything. Incineroar watches her from her feet, where Peter Jr. barely goes up to Incineroar’s ankles.

“Endeavor, Junior!” Max shouts, feeling wide awake from the heat of battle. Peter Jr.’s eyes sparkle like a child having received enough candy to kill a horse, and then she goes haywire against Incineroar. She bites and snaps and growls and claws at Incineroar’s whole body; she’s running circles around the big lug, disappearing from view and reappearing for another bite and scratch.

Johnny backs up from the little purple whirlwind that Max unleashed on the battlefield. Incineroar can’t keep up, scratching at open air, trying to stomp her feet on Peter Jr. to make her quit. Within a few seconds, Peter Jr. has reduced Incineroar to a furious, growling mess, unable to catch or stop Peter Jr.’s onslaught.

Johnny knows that Peter Jr. isn’t catchable, but he still shouts out a direction: “Darkest Lariat, the second you see ‘er!”

“Quick Attack, again, and then we have it!” Incineroar already knows what’s going to happen, so she at least goes out gracefully. Peter Jr. rams into Incineroar’s chest as she tries to cover her vulnerability, but Peter Jr. has rolled into a perfect ball and hits exactly where Stoutland had hit Incineroar just earlier with such speed it’s inevitable that it’s a Pokémon downing move. Incineroar falls with a mighty thump, Peter Jr. standing victoriously on top of her like a little purple showboat.

Peter Jr. chirps and titters, but before Max can recall her back into her Pokéball, Arcanine comes out of nowhere and slams her paw into Peter Jr., knocking her out cold in an instant.

Arcanine snarls at Max, drooling with anticipation.

Max recalls Peter Jr.’s unconscious body back into her ball as Johnny recalls Incineroar. Arcanine wags her tail close to the ground, baring her teeth. She’s taller than both boys by a significant amount, Johnny’s face reaching the center of her chest. He holds onto her as Max considers his options.

He stares up at his giant steel snake, That so far has done nothing helpful. “Could you help me out a little? Like, look at the big dog that just took out Junior?? For like, a second? Steelix!”

“Why doesn’t it listen t’ya?” Johnny asks, petting Arcanine’s chest fur. “Bonnie listens.” 

Johnny has a Lonnie and a Bonnie? Why does everything match with this guy? 

“Beats me!” Max throws his arms in the air. “I got it here, so maybe it’s a Mayview thing!”

“Nah, I think it just doesn’t like ya,” Johnny says confidently. “You gotta just hang it with it more.”

“It’s thirty feet tall! I can’t fit it in my house!” Max points up to Steelix’s head, which is probably a couple feet across by itself. 

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Johnny says. “Now, ya gonna throw out another Poké, or what?? I thought ya were all overconfident!”

Max’s own smack talking has led him to certain doom. He reaches for his still active Pokéballs and throws out Magnemite, a Pokémon he’s had since Baxborough that seems to refuse to evolve on principle.

“Spark!” Max yells out, pointing to Arcanine. He’s wasting no time, here, and Johnny doesn’t seem to be either. He backs up as soon as he hears Max’s intake of breath, and in contrast calls for Arcanine: “Flame Charge!”

Arcanine roars, fire and smoke flowing out of its mouth. That fire dances around Arcanine’s body until it covers her completely, a beacon of fire. Magnemite buzzes and whirs alive with electricity, seemingly causing it to happen out of nowhere. Bold golden lightning streaks zap around Magnemite’s whole body, and they collide.

Arcanine opens her mouth and takes Magnemite in there like a tennis ball, paralyzing her in the process. Magnemite is consumed by flame, but manages to drag itself out of Arcanine’s mouth with minimal damage. It looks charred, but still moves.

Arcanine is dancing in a circle, barely balanced, gritting her teeth against the pain of electrocution until eventually she falls still, on her side, eyes wild and furious.

“Go ahead, Gyro Ball!” Magnemite reels itself backward like a drawn car toy, and rams itself into Arcanine’s side again, as she lays unresponsive from the remaining electricity. It makes her look like a live wire, fur sticking up at all ends.  Johnny is looking for something in his pockets, and then behind the meat of the fight, curses a weiner dog who ate his remaining lum berries.

Magnemite is a little metal ball with magnets on it, so if nothing else, it’s a hard hitter. Arcanine takes the punch with almost no sound, and then turns back to Johnny as the paralysis begins to wear off. Johnny sheds a proud tear.

“You toughed it out! Yer a good girl, Bonnie! Don’t let this metal tennis ball tell ya otherwise!”

Arcanine wags her tail, beating it against the road.

Max thinks that’s pretty cute, actually. He turns to Magnemite. “The pure, genuine love of a Pokémon and their trainer, Magnemite. It just can’t be ignored all the time. You get that, don’t you?”

Magnemite bounces in the air, waiting for direction, but pleased with the conversation. With a WOOSH and a WHACK, Steelix sends both Arcanine and Magnemite flying off of the field and out of the imposed fighting ring. Johnny and Max react instantly, recalling Arcanine and Magnemite back into their Pokéballs before they can go soaring in the air.

When Max looks back to question Steelix’s actions, it opens its mouth and shrieks like compacting metal at a car impound lot. Max is realizing that he’s made a huge mistake leaving Steelix out in the open for the fight--that while it was behaving itself earlier, Johnny was right. It doesn’t like him.

And all of the fighting is making it agitated. Mad it can’t join or mad that it’s watching other Pokémon fight, Max can’t risk either of them getting hurt, or worse.

Max tries to recapture Steelix in its Pokéball but it refutes the effort, shrieking again and coiling the fighting ring tighter until Torkoal, Johnny, and Max have to get closer. He turns to Johnny with a look of panic. “You have to help me get Steelix under control.” Johnny nods, gritting his teeth. “Decidueye! Leaf Blade!”

From up in the air where Max had left Decidueye to watch until it was time to re-enter the fight, he takes a blade made from his feathers and takes a sharp swan dive to Steelix’s head. The slice is swift, but barely gets through against Steelix’s skin, making it lash out and rise up against Decidueye, who has to retreat.

“Eruption, Connie!” Johnny calls out, Torkoal, otherwise uninvolved in the fight, immediately runs up to where Steelix has let its body become vulnerable as it focuses on Decidueye. Instead of smoke pluming out of Torkoal’s back, lava pukes out, smearing on Steelix’s body and harmlessly sliding off of Torkoal’s shell. Debris and heat and smoke come right after, popping like popcorn. Steelix squeals like a derailing train, its tail whipping around to catch any lingering flies on the field. Johnny and Max hit the deck to avoid being crushed.

Max takes out his final Pokémon, Chatot, while lying on the ground on his belly and yells out a direction the instant he’s materialized out of the gadget. “Chatter! We can’t let it think, go!”

Chatot, a multicolored parrot with a music note on the back of its head, flies up to meet Decidueye and lets out a mind-numbing screech, sounding suspiciously like game night at Max’s house turned up five hundred decibels.

It works as well as Max could’ve hoped, making Steelix sway in the air where it had risen so high. Steelix’s mouth opens and closes, before it strikes the ground not far from where Max and Johnny are still on the ground. It bites into the road, leaving behind a devastating crater as it bites into the asphalt, chewing the debris.

“It was gonna… eat me…” Max says quietly, delirious with fear. Johnny puts his hand on Max’s sweat-soaked back.

“Obviously,” he says.

Maybe being eaten would be a better outcome than being comforted by Johnny.

“But we almost got it, so you can’t go back now! Let’s do a team-up. Get yer bird-man, and he’ll get Connie, and they’ll do a sick move! Just call ‘im!”

“Decidueye!” Max shouts, hailing him from the ground. Decidueye spots him immediately, swan-diving for the three of them, spinning Chatot in a circle from the force of his velocity. “Pick up Torkoal--”

“--Connie--” Johnny intercepts.

“Irrelevant!” Max screeches, bafflement combining with fear to make him sound insane, “Pick up Connie and protect him!”

Decidueye takes a slight curve on his trajectory, picking up Torkoal with one arm and swinging back into the air with almost no loss of speed. Decidueye is an incredible partner, one that Max can’t be grateful enough for.

“Thanks, mom,” he says quietly.

“Decidueye is yer mom?” Johnny asks, side-eyeing him.

“Oh, my God. Shut up. Forever.”

Above them, Decidueye is spinning circles around a still-confused Steelix. With only a mere moment of Pokémon-to-Pokémon communication, Decidueye sweeps close to Steelix’s face and releases Torkoal like a bowling ball, as Torkoal uses Body Slam to hit Steelix as hard as he can. Decidueye follows with another slice of Leaf Blade, a double whammy that successfully takes down Steelix. It tries to roar, but comes out weak, then it growls, and it eventually falls with enough force that it causes a localized, mini earthquake. Johnny and Max hold onto each other through the force.

“Get it!” Johnny says. “Get it in yer ball, before it wakes up!” Max nods, fumbling with his belt on the ground, and then catches Steelix back into its Pokéball before it can go full murderous again.

Decidueye lands behind them with Torkoal, gently putting it on the ground and then helping Max and Johnny get back on their feet. Chatot saunters from the air, landing on Torkoal’s back with a chirp.

Johnny dusts himself off as Max tries to catch his breath. The evidence of their fight is shown in the Steelix-shaped crushed grass to the side of the road, and the Steelix-mouth-sized hole in the road. “We didn’t finish our fight standard, that’s for sure. But yer a good trainer, I can tell. So don’t you worry about having to come back an’ fight me, less you want to! Then, I’ll make time in my schedule. An’ as for your Starchman stardge, here you go, kid. You deserve it.”

Johnny hands over a Starchman stardge, a cardboard badge that’s been spraypainted golden. This is the token that the Mayview Minor Championships use for proof of winning battles, and for gyms, Max would get ten.

“Gee, thank you. And I won’t tell anyone you threaten to fight in your Pokémon battles, like a weirdo.” 

“S’not weird, s’manly.” Johnny says. Max gives him a face of mild disgust. “Just take yer badge, and rest up! Next up… is Master Guerra’s Fighting gym, even if he’s no master t’me.”

“Isabel’s grandad?” Max asks.

“Who’s Isabel?” Johnny asks.